Abstract: When most of us imagine dinosaurs, we think of the colossal sauropods, ferocious theropods, and bizarre horned and armored creatures that rule museum exhibit halls.  These magnificent characters ruled Earth’s terrestrial ecosystems for 150 million years. But how did they get that way?  In this talk we’ll explore the humble origins of the Dinosauria. Our story begins in the wake of the most precipitous mass extinction the world has ever seen, and follows the trail of the group that would eventually birth the dinosaurs, the Archosauria.  We’ll touch on the lucky breaks that paved the way for dinosaur evolution, meet some of the earliest representatives of the group, and speculate on a few of the potential specializations that fueled their rise.

Biography: I’m a vertebrate paleontologist most interested in studying dinosaur evolution and paleobiology. My current research focuses on the evolutionary history of Titanosauria – the latest surviving and perhaps most diverse lineage of long- necked sauropod dinosaurs. Titanosauria includes over 40 species that had a near-global distribution during the Late Cretaceous. They are of particular interest to me and my students because of the incredible array of adult body sizes attained within the group. Titanosauria includes the largest land-living animals of all time, as well as species thought to be dwarfs. Among dinosaurs, titanosaurs may be one of the only groups to experience a body size reduction during their evolutionary history. With regard to paleobiology, I am most interested in understanding dinosaur life history, and utilize bone histology to explore and reconstruct growth patterns in extinct dinosaurs, living birds, and other vertebrates. To these ends, I also conduct field research in Montana, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe. I am jointly appointed in the Biology Department at Macalester, and teach a selection of courses that relate to my research interests, including: (1) Dinosaurs (GEOL 101), (2) Biodiversity and Evolution (BIOL 270), (3) Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy (BIOL 394), and (4) Vertebrate Paleobiology (GEOL 394).
BS: Montana State University 1996
MSc: Stony Brook University 1999
PhD: Stony Brook University 2001