I am a paleontologist with research interests that include rebound from mass extinctions, Paleozoic community evolution, and Paleozoic echinoderms, especially blastoids.  I have conducted international fieldwork for 41 years (and counting). I was last in the field in Mongolia in the summer of 2022.

Photo by Felix Kunze

Photo by Felix Kunze

I am a member of the Atlanta Chapter of the Explorers Club; Fellow National (2004); a member of the Legacy Society; and a member of Famous Firsts. This 2018 Flag expedition was “Expedition of the Year” at the Atlanta Chapter.

I am a candidate for the Explorers Club Board of Directors. This is my 90 second speech, filmed outside York Minster in York, England, to encourage members of the Explorers Club to vote for me .

Although retired from teaching, I maintain an active research program with two primary foci: Devonian anoxia and mass extinction with fieldwork in the Central Asian Orogenic Belt (Mongolia and China), and the evolutionary paleobiology of the Blastoidea (Echinodermata).

Dr. Sarah Carmichael (geochemist at Appalachian State University) and I founded the DAGGER group. DAGGER is coordinated by faculty at Appalachian State University and colleagues in Germany and Austria, but consists of geochemists, sedimentologists, paleontologists, stratigraphers, and science communicators from around the globe.