Students
Robin is originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and completed his B. Sc. (Zoology) at the University of Manitoba. Robin worked two summers at the Morden and District Museum in southwest Manitoba, during which time he developed an interest in the diversity of mosasaurs in the late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway. Robin received his M. Sc. (Earth Sciences) with distinction from Carleton University. His masters project provided a re-description of the holotype of Brachylophosaurus canadensis (a hadrosaurine dinosaur), and provided further insight into the chewing mechanics of hadrosaurines by studying the kinetic limitations imposed by cranial joints in both Brachylophosaurus and Edmontosaurus. For his doctoral work at the University of Calgary, Robin is re-visiting the evolutionary history of Ichthyopterygia. His research focuses on the phylogenetic and evolutionary implications of an assemblage of early Triassic ichthyosaurs collected from alpine locations in British Columbia.
Robin Cuthbertson
Student projects at a glance:
-
-Evolutionary history of
early Triassic ichthyosaurs -
-Origin and systematics of
caecilian amphibians -
-Palaeoecology of the
herbivorous dinosaurs -
-Amphibian and Dissorophoidea
Evolution -
-Carboniferous reptiles
Hillary arrived in Fall 2006 to begin her Ph. D. after completing her Masters and B. Sc. at the University of Toronto. Hillary is interested in understanding the sequence of evolutionary events that culminated in the origin of amniote tetrapods. Her Masters work focused on the anatomy and systematics of some of the earliest amniotes, the basal non-therapsid synapids. Hillary’s current work has shifted focus to the non-amniote tetrapods, with an aim to contribute to a clearer understanding of the origin of modern amphibians, specifically caecilians, through examination of cranial anatomy and development. She is also interested in changes that occurred in an important soft tissue organ, the epidermis, during the transition to amniotes. This work includes documenting epidermal organization and the pattern of epidermal protein expression, and comparing these across tetrapods.
Taran Meyer
Taran hails from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where she did her undergraduate and master's research on 30 to 40 million year old mammalian microfossils from the Cypress Hills. However, when she realized she was forgetting that there was more to animals than just their isolated teeth, she decided to jump ship and is now working on some of the first true reptiles, specimens from the Carboniferous Period in the Czech Republic... that actually have whole heads attached to bodies!
Jordan earned his B.Sc. in Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoecology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. His Honours thesis was a reexamination of sexual dimorphism in the postcranium of Chasmosaurus belli, a species of horned dinosaur. Having since moved to Calgary, Alberta in the summer of 2006, Jordan is now striving to complete his Ph. D. His research is on the evolutionary palaeoecology of the herbivorous dinosaurs of Alberta, using dental microwear as a proxy for inferring diet and, by extension, trophic dynamics. He has also produced research describing the postcranial skeleton of another species of horned dinosaur and, together with fellow lab mate Robin Cuthberson, has named a new species of marine reptile.
Helene Bourget
Helene, a french student from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France joined the lab last January. Last year, she studied paleontology for the first year of her Masters degree at Montpellier University (in the South of France). She completed that year with an internship mixing molecular data with paleontology. She worked on estimating divergence times between different vertebrate clades. Since September, she has started her DES (equivalent to the second and last year of her French Masters degree) with a one year internship in Canada. Her research concentrates on early Amphibians, and especially the Dissorophoidea: Amphibamidae.
