News
ICVM in Prague
July 21st - 25th,, 2019
We're back in the beautiful city of Prague for the 12th International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology with myself and colleagues from Bristol and the Natural History Museum presenting 4 talks, including my chairing a special symposium "The Evolution of Skull Form and Function: Finite-element Solutions to Infinite Problems" alongside co-chairs Jen Bright, David Button and Marc Jones.
More digital dissections!
June 10th, 2019
Two lovely new digital dissection papers released in the last few weeks. Learn more about cranial musculature in teleost fishes in a new Journal of Anatomy paper by Robert Brocklehurst and beautiful figures of a digital dissection of the head of a pigeon led by Marc Jones in a new paper in Zoological Letters (see Publications for links).
Feeding habits of aquatic crocodilians (fossil and living) in PalaeontologyMarch 29th, 2019
Many congratulations to former Bristol MSc student Antonio Ballell on publishing his first paper comparing feeding mechanics in living and fossil aquatic crocodilians in Palaeontology!
Presentations at SVPCA and SVP
September and October, 2018
Awesome work being done by Team Dino presented at 66th Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy in Manchester. Meanwhile, leader of Team Tetrapod Professor Emily Rayfield will be presenting some of my work at the 78th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA.
Alumni Wall of Fame at Leyden High School
Poster at Palaeontological Association Annual Meeting
December 14th - 16th, 2018
Great to be back in Bristol for the 62nd Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association (and my first Palass meeting since Uppsala in 2007!). Great way to wrap up an excellent 2018!
Bone strains and bite forces in four species of lizard
December 4th, 2018
So good to see this monster out - experimental work done some time ago with Callum Ross and colleagues collecting bite forces and cranial bone strains in four species of lizards now available in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Giant 3D ichthyosaur skull described in PeerJ
January 8th, 2019
And a great way to kick off 2019 - new paper describing a huge ichthyosaur skull with Dean Lomax and Nigel Larkin in PeerJ, available open access.
Very proud to have been inducted into my high school's Alumni Wall of Fame! Had a wonderful time talking to students, meeting my former teachers and enjoying the Homecoming festivities!
September 28th, 2018
Well, it finally happened...after 10 years of postdoc-ing I am very happy to announce I am now a Lecturer at University College London in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology! I'll be continuing my ongoing collaborations with Bristol and the Natural History Museum while also breaking ground on exciting new projects and seeking undergrad/MSc/PhD students and postdocs interested in vertebrate functional morphology - please get in touch!
I will also be teaching Human Anatomy to Medical and Science students - all very exciting!
September 2018
Another new (and this time PERMANENT) Academic Home
A Crassigyrinus-like jaw from the Tournasian of Scotland
August 3rd, 2018
Published in Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (EESTRSE for short), this paper with the legendary Jenny Clack and Carys Bennett extends the range of one of my favorite fossil critters - the tadpole from hell, Crassigyrinus - 20 million years back in time!
Presentation at the SICB DVM European Regional Meeting
May 11th, 2018
See my lightning talk at the first European Regional Meeting of SICB's Division of Vertebrate Morphology.
transition in tetrapods.
But...that's not all. Very pleased to also be starting a second NERC-funded grant with Paul Barrett at the Natural History Museum in London on the role of skull evolution and feeding in the radiation of early dinosaurs - hiring soon!
Pleased to be back in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol starting on a newly funded NERC grant with Prof. Emily Rayfield looking at the evolution of cranial mechanics and feeding during the landmark water-land
New Academic Home and 2017 Grant Success!October 2017
(ANOTHER) New article - Digital dissection of Xenopus
May 26th, 2017
I'm on a roll this month - my full-body digital dissection of the model organism Xenopus laevis - the African clawed frog - using diceCT is now available as an Early View article in the Journal of Anatomy!
Presentations at the Society for Experimental Biology
June 3rd - July 6th, 2017
Presentations and posters by myself and Team Frog's PhD students at the annual SEB meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Digital dissection of Xenopus now in print and on the cover!
July 23rd, 2017
Our Xenopus digital dissection is now in print in Journal of Anatomy as well as on the cover, with some media interest too!
New articles! - Inverse dynamics and kinematics of jumping in the red-legged running frogsMay 17th, 2017
A BIG day for Team Frog! Not one but TWO new articles published in the Journal of Experimental Biology investigating how frogs power jumps and control take-off angles using data from experiments and bimechancial modelling. And...look who's on the cover!
Check out the original articles here:
Plus selected media coverage:
Clip from my interview on BBC World Service
Australia Public Broadcaster (SBS TV)
Presentations at the International Congress of Vertebrate Morphology
June 29th - July 3rd, 2016
A great diversity of research being presented on fish AND frog CT-scanning, visualization and finite element and dynamic modelling by myself and co-authors at ICVM in Washington, D.C.
Presentation at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology
January 3rd - 7th, 2016
Attending the SICB meeting in Portland? Then see presentations by Team Frog for running and jumping in anurans!
New paper on Lesothosaurus out in PeerJ!December 21st, 2015
My fresh description of the skull of the early ornithischian dinosaur Lesothosaurus with co-authors Paul Barrett and Larry Witmer is out in PeerJ!
New article - Anatomy and 3D reconstruction of the skull of Acanthostega
March 11th, 2015
Our new article on this iconic early tetrapod is available open access in the journal PLOS ONE! Search for additional media coverage and blog posts:
"Team Frog" at the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) in Prague
June 30th - July 3rd, 2015
See three talks by myself, Chris Richards and Amber Collings on our latest findings of locomotion in frogs!
Invited talk at the University of Chicago
October 20th, 2015
A real privilege to present findings from our amphibian locomotion project to staff and students from the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy and great to catch up with colleagues in the Ross Lab.
Presentation at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
October 14th - 17th, 2015
Presented my all-new 3D reconstruction of the head of Crassigyrinus scoticus at the 75th Annual Meeting of SVP in Dallas, Texas - now to publish this monster!
New article - Anatomy and 3D reconstruction of the lower jaw of EusthenopteronAugust 21st, 2015
My detailed description in Palaeontology includes the discovery of an all new bone - the postsymphysial!
Presentation at the 4th International Palaeontological CongressSeptember 28th - October 3rd, 2014
Myself and a number of colleagues from Bristol's Palaeobiology Research Group presented our research at the 4th International Palaeontological Congress, hosted by the city of Mendoza.
Abstract volume is available online.
New article - Cranial bone strain in Uromastyx
May 29th, 2014
See my new article "In vivo cranial bone strain and bite force in the agamid lizard Uromastyx geyri" in the Journal of Experimental Biology, now available Open Access.
Poster at SVP
November 2, 2013
Presented some preliminary findings of my ongoing early tetrapod project as a poster at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Los Angeles.
Journal of Anatomy cover
August 15, 2013
My paper "In vivo bone strain and finite element modeling of the mandible of Alligator mississippiensis", is now the cover story for the September 2013 issue of the Journal of Anatomy!
Check out the original article here.
Presentation at the 2014 SVP Annual Meeting
November 5th - 8th, 2014
Presented my latest findings in our early tetrapod project - including some nice 3D visualizations and reconstruction of fossil tetrapod and extant fish skulls, in vivo and material properties data from living fish, contrast enhanced CT scans and results from finite element analysis - at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology held in Berlin.
Also got to see some famous fossils, witness the 25th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and attempted to eat a rather large schnitzel!
New (Academic) home!
October 6th, 2014
I have taken up a new position working with Dr. Chris Richards in the Structure and Motion Laboratory of the Royal Veterinary College, where I'll be working on an exciting ERC-funded project investigating the evolution of locomotion in frogs and salamanders.
New article - Scrimshaw on a dolphin skull and mandible
January 20th, 2015
And now for something a little different - a new article in the Journal of Natural Sciences Collection.
