About
Even as a child, collecting fossil crinoids in the Appalachian Mountains, I knew I would grow up to be a scientist. The natural world has stories of unimaginable depth and complexity; once seen through the lens of science the world never looks the same again. I've spent most of my life working for museums, starting as a volunteer and an unpaid intern. I spent 15 years at the Virginia Museum of Natural History as Curator of Paleontology, which gave me the opportunity to work on a vast range of fossils. Most of my work has focused on whales and other marine vertebrates from the Miocene Epoch, although I have published papers on a variety of fossils from different time periods ranging from Cambrian stromatolites to Pleistocene squirrels. In 2014 I left Virginia to become the Director of the Western Science Center in Hemet, California. Since relocating I've been working on Southern California Ice Age faunas, especially mastodons. To help pay my way through graduate school, I worked as a high school science teacher in rural Louisiana. This experience made clear to me the importance of having researchers actively involved in educating the public about science. Working with my wife, who is also a geologist and an educator, I've spent my career trying to connect the public with paleontological research through blogs and social media, teaching kits, actual and virtual field trips, lectures, ... and crowdfunding. In my view, science is a crucial part of our society, and one of the most exciting aspects of crowdfunding science is that it allows everyone to share in the excitement of scientific exploration.
Joined
March 2016
