The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and its leaders are excellent sources for vertebrate paleontology, evolution and climate change stories.
CATHERINE BADGLEY
Past-President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Museum of Paleontology and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI USA
Catherine Badgley's research areas include mammalian paleontology, terrestrial paleoecology and biogeography.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: General mission, operations, and policies of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and ethics issues involving vertebrate fossils
Contact Information
cbadgley@umich.edu
Phone: +1 734-763-6448 (with voicemail)
DARIN CROFT
Department of Anatomy
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH USA
Darin Croft is an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and is a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Field Museum. He spends most of his time teaching anatomy to medical and graduate students in Cleveland and conducting paleontological fieldwork and museum collections research throughout the world. Fieldwork has taken Darin to Australia, Madagascar, South America and the western United States. His research primarily focuses on the evolution of mammals in South America, especially a group of endemic (and now extinct) mammals called notoungulates. He is also interested in paleoecology (how extinct animals lived and interacted with each other) and the evolution of animals on island continents. Darin has taken part in many educational activities and has given presentations, helped design Web sites and exhibits, and done live television broadcasts designed to teach both children and adults about geology and paleontology. When in Chicago, he was especially busy with educational activities in the years following the unveiling of Sue the T. rex at the Field Museum; he continues to use Sue and his research on fossil mammals to illustrate the principles of fossil discovery, preparation, exhibition and scientific investigation.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Fossil mammals, paleobiology and climate/habitat change
Contact Information
dcroft@case.edu
Phone: +1 216-368-5268 (Darin is alerted via e-mail when there is a voicemail)
KRISTI CURRY ROGERS
Biology and Geology Departments
Macalester College
St. Paul, MN USA
Kristi Curry Rogers earned a BS in biology from Montana State University and completed her MSc and PhD in anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University. Her research focuses on dinosaur anatomy, evolution and paleobiology. She is particularly interested in the long-necked sauropod dinosaurs and has conducted field and museum research around the world in search of their bones. Kristi is also interested in the growth rates of dinosaurs and other vertebrates and utilizes bone histology to better understand how extinct animals made their livings. She is currently a faculty member in the Biology and Geology Departments at Macalester College and holds an adjunct professorship in geoscience at the University of Minnesota.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Dinosaur paleontology (especially sauropods) and general dinosaur evolution and paleobiology
Contact Information
rogersk@macalester.edu
Phone: +1 651-696-6799 (office); +1 651-331-6815 (cell)
NICHOLAS (NICK) C. FRASER
Keeper of Natural History
National Museums Scotland
Edinburgh UNITED KINGDOM
After receiving his PhD in geology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland in 1984, Nick Fraser spent the next six years at Cambridge University as a fellow of Girton College studying Triassic reptiles. In 1990 he became the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH) in Martinsville, Virginia. He recently moved back to Edinburgh, Scotland where he is now keeper of natural sciences at National Museums Scotland. Nick's research centers on terrestrial vertebrate faunal change across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. Nick is also very interested in public education, and for the past nine summers he has taken teachers, students and other volunteers to the badlands of Bighorn County, Wyoming, where he is excavating a very extensive Jurassic dinosaur bone bed. Most recently he has been working on Triassic terrestrial deposits in Liaoning Province, China, together with colleagues at the National Geological Museum, Beijing. Nick also currently serves as editor of the memoirs series for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Early Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems , mass extinctions, collecting on federal lands and commercial collecting
Contact Information
nick.fraser@nms.ac.uk
Phone: + (0) 131 247 4007 (office); + (0) 7526315501(mobile)
ANTHONY FRISCIA
University of California, Los Angeles
Undergraduate Education Initiatives / Physiological Sciences
Los Angeles, CA USA
Anthony (Tony) Friscia earned a BA in anthropology from Washington University under D. Tab Rasmussen. Tony started on the road to field work with Tab one summer in Utah's Uinta Basin, where Tony now runs his own research. Because of his work there, Tony also got a chance to participate in the Fayum project with Duke University and Elwyn Simons. He moved on to a Masters degree under Hans Thewissen, studying the carnivorous mammals from the Uintan Eocene deposits, and traveled with Hans to Pakistan to look for fossil whales. Anthony received his PhD in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles under Blaire Van Valkenburgh. His current research includes the paleoecology and ecomorphology of living and extinct mammalian carnivores, especially those of the Eocene, as well as taphonomic studies of more recent deposits such as the Pleistocene La Brea Tar Pits. He currently is a faculty member at UCLA helping to shape their undergraduate general education science program.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Mammalian paleontology (especially carnivores, whales and primates), biomechanics and paleoecology
Contact Information
Tonyf@ucla.edu
Phone: +1 310-206-6011 (office); +1 310-775-3538 (cell)
ANJALI GOSWAMI
Department of Earth Sciences
University of Cambridge
Cambridge UNITED KINGDOM
Anjali Goswami is a lecturer in paleobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Her main research interests are in mammalian evolution and development, especially using quantitative methods, such as morphometrics, to test for genetic and developmental constraints on large-scale patterns of morphological evolution. Her research has focused on Carnivora, Primates, Mesozoic mammals, and, most recently, on the Marsupial-Placental dichotomy. Anjali has also previously worked in wildlife conservation in central India. She currently conducts fieldwork in the Cretaceous of India and the Paleogene of Svalbard and has previously been involved in fieldwork in the western United States, Chile, Peru and Madagascar.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Mammalian evolution, evolutionary development, morphometrics, macroevolution, general paleobiology and wildlife conservation
Contact Information
agos06@esc.cam.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1223 333493 (office), +44 (0)7707 616517 (mobile)
JASON J. HEAD
Department of Biology
University of Toronto Mississauga
Mississauga, ON CANADA
Jason Head received a BS in biology from the University of Michigan in 1995, a MS in geology from Southern Methodist University in 1997, and a PhD from Southern Methodist University in 2002. Jason is a vertebrate paleontologist and biologist interested in the relationship between evolutionary patterns in reptiles and climate over the past 66.5 million years, as well as the origin and evolutionary relationships of snakes, lizards, turtles and crocodilians. He is currently an assistant professor of biology at the University of Toronto.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Reptile paleontology, climate change, dinosaurs, evolution, evolutionary developmental paleontology and morphometrics
Contact Information
jason.head@utoronto.ca
Phone: +1 905-828-3981
PAUL L. KOCH
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA USA
Paul L. Koch is professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He received his MS and PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his BA at the University of Rochester. He received the Charles Schuchert Award from the Paleontological Society and is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society. Paul's research focuses on vertebrate ecology (past and present), which he reconstructs using biogeochemical methods and other tools. He studies how animal ecology influences evolutionary patterns in vertebrates. Another large thread of his research is continental paleoclimatology, which he reconstructs through geochemical analysis of ancient soils and fossils. Paul has worked on a wide variety of vertebrates (Pleistocene and early Cenozoic mammals, marine mammals, carnivores, condors, crocodilians, sharks) and has done field work in North and South America, Asia, Africa and Antarctica.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Cenozoic mammals, marine mammals, Pleistocene extinctions, isotope biogeochemistry and paleoclimatology
Contact information
pkoch@pmc.ucsc.edu
Phone: +1 831-459-5861
Fax: +1 831-459-3074
JOHN LONG
Museum Victoria
Melbourne, VIC AUSTRALIA
John Long was born in Melbourne, Australia, and began collecting fossils there at age seven. He graduated with a PhD from Monash University in 1984, and spent six years as a researcher in paleontology at universities in Canberra, Perth and Tasmania before being appointed at the Western Australian Museum in 1989 as curator of vertebrate paleontology. In 2004 John returned to Melbourne as head of sciences for Museum Victoria, Australia's largest museum organization. John's research has focused on the early evolution of vertebrates (fishes) as well as dinosaurs and general evolutionary theory. He has worked in Australia, Antarctica, Africa, Asia, North America and Europe. Among his recent major papers are contributions to solving some of the biggest problems in paleontology — what killed the Australian megafauna, and the origins of the first land animals. His publications include many journal articles, as well as a number of both technical and award-winning popular-level books.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: Paleozoic fishes, origin of tetrapods, Australian dinosaurs and other fossils and general evolutionary theory
Contact information
jlong@museum.vic.gov.au
Phone: +61-3-8341-7420
LARS WERDELIN
Department of Palaeozoology
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Stockholm SWEDEN
Lars Werdelin received his PhD in 1981 from the University of Stockholm, under the guidance of Björn Kurtén (Helsinki). Since then he has worked on various aspects of carnivore evolution including systematics, paleoecology, functional morphology and biogeography. Since 1996 his work has been focused on the evolution of carnivora in Africa, including the close association between carnivora and early human ancestors.
Areas of expertise for media contacts: Carnivores living and fossil, African paleontology, evolutionary biology and conservation
Contact information
werdelin@nrm.se
Phone: +46-(0)851954202
BLAIRE VAN VALKENBURGH
President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA USA
Currently a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles within the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Blaire received her PhD in 1984 from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Blaire’s areas of research expertise include mammalian paleontology, functional morphology and carnivore paleobiology.
Areas of Expertise for Media Contacts: General mission, operations, and policies of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and ethics issues involving vertebrate fossils
Contact Information
bvanval@ucla.edu
Phone: +1 310-794-9398 (with voicemail)