I am a vertebrate paleontologist interested in mammalian evolution. While I often go to far away places to dig in the dirt to find fossils, I also spend a lot of time studying specimens in my lab or in museums. I do all of these things because my research focuses on understanding how mammalian lineages and communities change over geological timescales, and how these changes are driven by intrinsic biological and extrinsic environmental factors.
Although I am interested in Cenozoic mammals broadly, I spend much time reconstructing the evolutionary history of duplicidentates (rabbits, hares, pikas, and their immediate ancestors) and trying to sort out how their morphology is a product of their history. I think they’re an excellent evolutionary model system and that more people should be working on them. The links below describe my research in more detail.
Research
evolutionary morphology [–>] systematics [–>] faunal stability [–>]
Field Work
asia [–>] middle east [–>]