About

I am a palaeobiologist who investigates the diets of modern and extinct reptiles through examination of their microscopic tooth surface textures, known as dental microwear textural analysis (DMTA). This helps us constrain and understand the ecological roles of extinct reptiles, which subsequently enables better reconstructions of ancient food webs and ecosystems.

I am currently a Leverhulme research fellow at the University of Birmingham where I apply DMTA and biomechanical modelling to Triassic dinosaurs and their archosaur relatives to investigate how dinosaurs rose to dominance in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic.

I completed my PhD at the University of Leicester in 2019 where I reconstructed the diets of pterosaurs; extinct flying reptiles that lived between 210 and 66 million years ago, using DMTA.

Employment

2020–Present. Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow

2019–2020. Teaching Assistant in Geology & Palaeobiology. University of Leicester

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Education

​2015–2019. PhD in Geology, University of Leicester, UK.
Thesis title: Resolving pterosaur dietary ecology using tooth microwear and biomnechanics.
Supervisors: David Unwin,  Mark Purnell, Richard Butler, Don Henderson
Funded by CENTA (NERC)

2011–2015. MBiol, BSc (Integrated Masters) in Zoology, University of Leeds, UK. Dissertation title: Complex life-history and population dynamic changes behind multi-trophic interactions in a host-parasitoid system subject to coloured environmental noise.
Supervisor: Steven Sait

Me presenting at the Specimen Standoff event at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in October 2019.