# overview
I am an analytical paleobiologist, focused how we infer evolutionary relationships in the fossil record, date when lineages diverge from each other, and how we can use relationships among extinct organisms to say something about evolutionary processes in deep time. I work on whatever group of organism is best for a particular question (because every fossil record is different), so my research includes everything from living brachiopods to fossil birds. I most often work on the planktonic graptolites, a group of colonial zooplankton that diversified rapidly and went extinct during the Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian periods, hundreds of millions of years ago. Graptolites have a fantastically detailed fossil record for asking evolutionary questions, but they have also long been important as a biostratigraphic tool in economic geology in the early Paleozoic.

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University of Tennessee at Knoxville - (Knoxville, Tennessee, United States)

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University at Buffalo, State University of New York - (Buffalo, New York, United States)

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University of Chicago - (Chicago, Illinois, United States)

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University of California, Davis - (Davis, California, United States)

# publications[].label
INFERRING ANCESTOR-DESCENDANT RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD (WITH STATISTICS)

# publications[].label
PHYLOGENETIC RECONSTRUCTION OF RECENT SHORT-LOOP TEREBRATULIDE BRACHIOPODS: COMPARING SOURCES OF VARIABILITY

# publications[].label
Combined Analysis of Extant Rhynchonellida (Brachiopoda) using Morphological and Molecular Data.

# publications[].label
Graptoloid diversity and disparity became decoupled during the Ordovician mass extinction.

# publications[].publisher
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

# publications[].label
Preparing Paleontological Datasets for Phylogenetic Comparative Methods

# publications[].label
COMPLEXITY IN INTERPRETING BODY SIZE EVOLUTION IN LONG-LOOP BRACHIOPODS (TEREBRATELLIDINA)

# publications[].label
The inseparability of sampling and time and its influence on attempts to unify the molecular and fossil records

# publications[].label
Simulating our ability to accurately detect abrupt changes in assemblage-based paleoenvironmental proxies

# publications[].label
IF YOU CAN SIMULATE IT, YOU CAN FIT IT: DO-IT-YOURSELF PHYLOGENETIC MODELS OF TRAIT EVOLUTION FOR THE FOSSIL RECORD WITH THE R PACKAGE TREEVO

# publications[].label
Assessing the effect of time-scaling methods on phylogeny-based analyses in the fossil record

# publications[].label
The inseparability of sampling and time and its influence on attempts to unify the molecular and fossil records

# publications[].label
Comparing cal3 and other a posteriori time-scaling approaches in a case study with the pterocephaliid trilobites

# publications[].label
Integrating Fossil Observations Into Phylogenetics Using the Fossilized Birth-Death Model

# publications[].label
A stochastic rate-calibrated method for time-scaling phylogenies of fossil taxa

# publications[].label
paleotree: an R package for paleontological and phylogenetic analyses of evolution

# publications[].label
Topology, divergence dates, and macroevolutionary inferences vary between different tip-dating approaches applied to fossil theropods (Dinosauria).

# publications[].label
Probabilistic divergence time estimation without branch lengths: dating the origins of dinosaurs, avian flight and crown birds.

# publications[].label
When can clades be potentially resolved with morphology?

# publications[].label
ON THE ORIGIN OF MORPHOSPECIES  USING BAYESIAN PHYLOGENETICS TO QUANTIFY THE MODE OF ANCESTOR DESCENDANT RELATIONSHIPS IN PALEOZOIC INVERTEBRATES

# publications[].label
An Inclusive Generic Phylogeny Reveals Constraint and Convergence in the Graptoloidea

# streetAddress
Texas A&M University; Geology; 3115 TAMU

# inTheNews[].label
ConocoPhillips Gives Texas A&M $1 Million To Support Data Science Certificate Program

# inTheNews[].label
Why We Suspect Earth's Journey Around the Sun Had a Say in How Life Evolved