Brian Swartz
Padian LabEmail: bobbitworm@berkeley.edu Phone: (510) 643-2109 Web page: http://ib.berkeley.edu/people/students/person_detail.php?person=269 His research: Brian is interested in the interplay of form, function, and history over macroevolutionary time. His research focuses on the origin of terrestrial vertebrates and consists of three parts: (i) describing a new upper-Middle Devonian (~380 million year old) tetrapod "precursor" from western North America, and addressing questions about the interrelationships and (ad)aptational complexes of early tetrapods; (ii) using faunal assemblage, geographic, stratigraphic, and isotopic data to study the biogeographic and paleoenvironmental origins of terrestrial vertebrates; and (iii) resolving the homology of limb and trunk musculoskeletal systems in coelacanths, lungfishes, and salamanders - through first hand dissection and CT-scanning - to better understand the origin of walking.
Why paleontology: "I have long been drawn to counterintuitive, iconoclastic, and intellectually obscure hypotheses - and considering the history of transformational ideas and evidence associated with (macro)evolutionary theory and terrestrial vertebrate origins - I was only naturally drawn to the field."
On science and the public: Brian is interested in improving the public's understanding of macroevolution. His work on the origin of tetrapods is featured on the Understanding Evolution website, and was used by Berkeley Professor Kevin Padian in his testimony at the Dover, Pennsylvania “intelligent design” trial (Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover Area School Board).
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