Cindy Looy poses with graduate student Jeff Benca in Death Valley, Ca. Photo by Helina Chin. UCMP alums working at the Smithsonian NMNH. Photo courtesy of Dave Lindberg.
Congratulations to Cindy Looy who was granted tenure in 2016 and is now Associate Professor of Integrative Biology! Cindy had a busy fall semester co-teaching at the Gump field station in Moorea. At the GSA annual meeting in Denver, Cindy co-ran a symposium titled: Novel Approaches to Plant Evolution from Paleontological, Physiological, and Developmental Perspectives.
At the end of the 2016, Tony Barnosky accepted a position as Executive Director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Reserve. We congratulate Tony on his new role at Stanford and we are happy he'll remain connected to the UCMP as curator and Professor Emeritus.
Professor Emeritus David Lindberg reminded us that five UCMP alumni can be found at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC where their careers are thriving. In the photo from left: Nick Pyenson, Curator of Fossil Marine Mammals (Ph.D. 2008), Christopher Meyer, Research Zoologist, Invertebrates (Ph.D. 1998), Karen Osborn, Research Zoologist, Invertebrates (Ph.D. 2007), Ellen Strong, Research Zoologist, Invertebrates (B.A. 1991), and Allen Collins, Zoologist, Invertebrates (Ph.D. 1999). Photographed in the Smithsonian's Kenneth E. Behring Family Rotunda. Go UCMP!! UCMP
Research Associate Julia Sankey and students at CSU Stanislaus published two papers in PaleoBios in 2016 on Mehrten (early Pliocene, Central CA) vertebrates and geology (see in Publications list).This work was supported by a $5 million dollar grant from the Department of Education to support undergraduate students in STEM. Sankey students were paid to do field, lab, and museum work (at the UCMP). She and Jake Brewer are also publishing a book on the Mehrten and Central CA fossil wildlife for the general public.