I started collecting blastoids at the local rock quarry when I was growing up in north Alabama. I first went into the field in Dr. Alan S. Horowitz (Indiana University) and Dr. D. Bradford Macurda, Jr (University of Michigan) when I was in the 8th grade. Many, many years later, Brad and I are working on a monographic revision of the blastoids based on our collective 100 years of blastoid studies.

My blastoid studies include taxonomy, paleoecology, paleobiogeography and functional morphology of blastoid respiration and feeding. Techniques include everything from binocular microscopes to digitizing acetate peels to synchrotron imaging to hydrodynamic modeling. Click on the links to explore each further.