Outreach

Public Lectures: Want to learn about paleontology and what I do? I've developed six different lectures for general audiences about my work. Email me if you are interested.

• "Tales Told by Trilobites" 

    Using research by myself and other paleontologists over the last two decades, I talk about the importance of trilobites, and what we can learn from these iconic, long-extinct arthropods.

• "Living Fossils, Sex and the Single Anostracan, and Doomsday Preppers: The Branchiopod Crustacean Fossil Record" 

    Using research by myself and others, I explore weird aspects of the natural history of branchiopod crustaceans. Are Triops living fossils? What is a living fossil, anyway? How does a female-only species evolve? Why exactly can we hatch dry sea monkey eggs in water? What does that have to do with doomsday preppers and extinction"?

• "Species, Vague Boundaries, and Biodiversity: Reframing Woodger’s Paradox" 

    Species are often considered a fundamental unit of biodiversity. But if you ask biologists or paleontologists to tell you what a species IS, you will get many different, conflicting answers. How can we understand biodiversity if we don't understand what species are? 

• "Geological Critical Thinking: When does a hypothesis become a conspiracy theory?"

    Everyone makes mistakes. Some are forgivable and others are egregious. The same thing happens in science. A hypothesis can be wrong, but understandable given the limits of knowledge at the time. Other hypotheses are wild and detached from reality. Using real examples from paleontology, I explore how we can tell good hypotheses from bad, and how we can teach critical thinking.

• "Insights from Pyrite: Trilobite Sex and Reproduction"

    How do we know how a long-dead creature reproduced? Using some exceptionally preserved fossils from upstate New York, I discuss the intimate life of trilobites, with a review of some of the old ideas about trilobite sex in the fossil record.

• "Evolution"

    A general talk that removes the baggage from the term and explains what exactly it is.