BEFORE THE BOLIDE

Stratigraphy, paleobiology, and macroevolution

RESEARCH PROJECTS

My Current Focus

Juvenile Dunkleosteus

A nearly complete head of a juvenile Dunkleosteus terrelli, an extinct armored fish, from the Cleveland Shale contains new details about the morphology and paleobiology of one of the Earth's earliest apex predators.

Geographic Range
& Extinction Risk

Geographic range is the most robust correlate of extinction risk in both modern and fossil species. There are many ways to measure how widespread a species is and not all are equally effective and yet many studies use measures without any justification. I am exploring how the different methods perform in simulated, extinct, and extant datasets.

Marine Vertebrates
of the Devonian

The rocks south of Buffalo, NY contain abundant fossils from the Devonian Period (360-420 million years ago). While mostly these are invertebrates such as brachiopods, corals, and trilobites there are also fish remains scattered about as well, but these have not been studied for ~100 years. I aim to update the vertebrate record of these rocks.