BMS 208 - Human Anatomy
BMS 309 - Human Anatomy Lab

Ph.D., Arizona State University, Anthropology
M.A., Arizona State University, Anthropology
B.A., University of San Diego, Anthropology

My primary research interest lies in understanding the ecological mechanisms that drove changes in community composition and structure throughout mammalian evolution. In other words, I am interested in determining “why” and “how” mammalian groups arose, diversified, and went extinct by studying their interactions with their physical environment and with one another. In mammals, one of the most impactful species interactions is competition, and those species most likely to compete with one another are those who occupy the same ecological niche, or “role” in the community. In the fossil record, ecological niches can only be examined using the anatomical features preserved in fossil specimens, namely teeth and bones. As teeth are the point of contact between a mammal and its food, I use fossil teeth to reconstruct the dietary niches, and ultimately pattern of dietary competition, of mammals living in North America between 65 and 40 million years ago.

Students working in my lab are currently exploring two different aspects of mammalian evolution: (1) dietary reconstruction through the study of dental anatomy and (2) microfossil collection and curation. (1) Students interested in dietary reconstruction will prepare dental molds for casting, cast dental specimens from these molds, curate molds and casts, mount dental casts for micro-CT scanning, process digital micro-CT scans, and collect two- and three-dimensional data using imaging software. (2) Students interested in microfossil collection will process sediment from the Uinta Basin, Utah and identify fossils in that sediment using microscopy. These fossil finds fill in an important gap in the vertebrate fossil record during a period of significant global warming ~40 million years ago. Finally, students working in my lab also have the opportunity to conduct paleontological fieldwork in the Uinta Basin, Utah.