President
Caroline Buttler is Head of Palaeontology at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales. Her research is focused on Palaeozoic bryozoans, especially the order Trepostomata, examining the systematics and taxonomy of these colonial animals, as well as their ecology and biogeography. Recent projects include investigating bryozoan and gastropod symbiosis, and the sclerobionts associated with the oldest known trepostome bryozoan. She is also interested in the conservation and care of geological material in museum collections.
Secretary
Elsa is a NERC Independent Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland. She uses X-ray tomography and digital visualisation to understand the anatomy and growth of the first mammals and their closest relatives. This work helps us understand the assembly of mammal traits, and how they have contributed to the group’s ongoing evolutionary success.
Vice President
Curator of Palaeontology at The Hunterian, University of Glasgow. After a BSc in Geology at the University of Edinburgh, he completed a PhD at the University of Glasgow on Carboniferous Crustacea from the excavations near Glasgow in the 1980s. Since then he has worked on many groups of fossils and continues to work on Carboniferous Crustacea as well Middle Jurassic dinosaurs and their context in Scotland. Working in the museum environment, Neil is interested in all aspects of Scottish palaeontology and public engagement having started the Scottish Geology Festival in 1990, being a member of the PalAlba research group and also a past president of the Geological Society of Glasgow.
Vice President / Treasurer
Tim McCormick is a geoscience data specialist at the British Geological Survey. His work focuses on developing systematic and stratigraphic data, geoscience ontologies and vocabularies, and ‘FAIR’ (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data. He teaches databases and data management in the UK and abroad.
Tim gained a PhD from the University of Glasgow in 1995 studying trilobite evolution. He worked as a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Birmingham, The Natural History Museum, London, and the University of Glasgow before joining BGS in 2000.
Treasurer
Editor
Dr Sue Beardmore is a specialist in skeletal preservation of vertebrate fossils. During PhD research at University College, Dublin, she developed a semi-quantitative method of assessing the articulation and completeness of Triassic reptiles from Monte San Giorgio, also applied to Jurassic ichthyosaurs from the Posidonia Shale and pterosaurs from Solnhofen-type deposits of Germany among other studies. Her most recent employment was at National Museums Scotland, as the John Ellerman Project Curator investigating fossil and natural science collections in Scottish museums. Her previous roles include developing the Recognised Collection of fossils at Elgin Museum, Moray, and move projects at Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Sue has been a palaeontology volunteer (field work) for the Natural History Museum of Utah since 2003.
Editor
Lucy is a Senior Curator of Palaeontology at Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales. Much of her research involves the taxonomy of Ordovician trilobites, and using trilobite fossils for biostratigraphy and palaeobiogeography, which has entailed working on faunas from Greenland, Canada, Kazakhstan and south Wales. Other research publications have focused on other groups of arthropods (insects, lobsters), problematic fossils (machaeridia), and the taphonomy of exceptionally preserved fossils, which was the subject of Lucy’s PhD at the University of Bristol. Another key interest is outreach, including work on temporary museum exhibitions, and helping to organize and facilitate public events.
Editor
Ben is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bristol who focuses on the evolution of marine reptiles through the Mesozoic. He combines taxonomy, phylogenetics, CT scanning and big data to explore changes in body plan and ecology with increasing interest in how different organisms take advantage of evolutionary opportunity.
Web Officer
Tony is Course Leader for Palaeontology at the University of Portsmouth, teaching a wide variety of topics from micropalaeontology to field mapping. He is a specialist in Palaeozoic palynology (organic-walled microfossils), in particular the chitinozoans, and uses these fossils for solving geological problems such as palaeoenvironmental analysis and biostratigraphy.
Communications Officer
Cass is a PhD student at University College London and the Natural History Museum. His current work includes looking at dietary niche partitioning and evolution of diet within theropod dinosaurs, in addition to looking at the neuroanatomy of non-maniraptoriform theropods including British megalosauroids. Primarily, using three dimensional dental microwear texture analysis and micro-CT scanning to compare dinosaurian data with extant archosaurs. More generally, he is interested in palaeoecosystem dynamics, food webs and evolution especially during the climatic perturbations, and the effects of abiotic and biotic factors on community structures and faunal assemblages.
Marc is the curator of fossil reptiles and amphibians at the Natural History Museum London. He also has honorary positions at University College London and the University of Adelaide Australia. His research frequently involves using X-ray CT data to quantify and communicate anatomical data to answer questions related to the function and diversity of amphibians and reptiles (in particular frogs, salamanders, and rhynchocephalians).
Amber is a PhD student at the University of Liverpool, funded by the UKRI NERC ACCE doctoral training programme. Her current work looks at the evolution of unique traits in the crania of the leporid lagomorphs (rabbits and hares). Primarily, she uses CT imaging and 3D modelling to test hypotheses of function via an engineering technique called finite element analysis.
More generally, Amber is interested in how biomechanical factors drive cranial evolution across all mammals including more recent human ancestors. In addition, she has a keen personal interest in the history of science, in particular that of palaeontology, evolutionary anthropology and archaeology.
