Meghan A. Balk, Ph.D.

Traits are the intersection of evolutionary history and ecological interactions. I am interested in both the drivers of trait—phenotypic—change and its ecological consequences. I use the modern and fossil record to investigate trait and environment evolution. I  seek to understand trait evolution and variation across time, levels of biotic organization, and habitats.

I utilize museum collections and am passionate about preserving and making available these invaluable resources.  I mobilize collection data through imaging, enabling metadata standards, and constructing machine learning workflows to preserve and enable FAIR data for continued exploration of data-driven science.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Evolutionary Paleobiology Group at the Naturhistorisk museum in Oslo, Norway.  Check out my Research tab for a list of current projects.