Degrees
BA, University of Pennsylvania, 2004
PhD, University of Chicago, 2010
About
I am a paleobotanist and an evolutionary biologist interested in exploring the relationship between form, function, and morphological evolution over long time scales. My research focuses on seed plant reproductive structures and integrates data from the paleontological record of extinct plants with experiments in living analogues in order to understand how the various functions that reproductive structures perform have driven patterns of change over their evolutionary history. I have used this approach to investigate several different aspects of reproductive biology over million-year timescales, including pollination mechanisms in ancient and living seed plants and changes in conifer seed cone morphology and tissue allocation associated with an increase in the importance of seed predators and seed dispersers over the Mesozoic. My work also includes several additional projects describing charcoalified mesofossils from Late Cretaceous deposits in the Eastern United States.
