Rancho La Brea Research Today | Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
Collections stacks at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.
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Aisling B. Farrell
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afarrell@tarpits.org
Fish, Amphibians, and Reptiles
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Rancho La Brea Research Today
Mairin Balisi
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michegan, Ann Arbor, MI
I am currently studying resource partitioning among the Late Pleistocene carnivorans of Rancho La Brea, using analysis of dental microwear.
www.lsa.umich.edu/eeb/people/grads/mairin.html
Dr. Jean-Paul Baquiran
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of California, Riverside, CA
My research has focused on the metagenomics for identification of novel petroleum hydrocarbon degrading enzymes in natural asphalt seeps from the Rancho La Brea
Dr. Wendy Binder
Associate Professor Loyola Marymount University and Research Associate at Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
My first work with the Rancho La Brea collections was when I was a graduate student at UCLA. My research focuses mainly on carnivore functional morphology. Recent projects with my undergraduates Shea Franklin, J'aime Moehlman, Derek Hondo, Natalie Poulter and Jaime Bittner include dire wolf and sabertoothed cat post-cranial measurements.
Abigail Curtis
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles
Cranio-dental shape evolution in Pleistocene canids from Rancho La Brea
www.eeb.ucla.edu/studentpage.php
Blanca Garcia
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
The principal aim of my research titled, “Influence of global climatic changes in the structure of predator-prey relationships in mammalian communities of the Iberian Neogene” is to determine how the environment affects the community structure of mammals on a global scale.
Alex Hubbe
Departamento de Genética e Biologia Evolutiva, Instituto de Biociências -Universidade de São Paulo, BZ
Based on measurements of adult extinct and extant Xenarthran skulls and rooted in quantitative genetics, the objective of my PhD project is to better understand some processes that might be related to cranial morphological evolution within Xenarthra lineages.
Lindsey Koper
Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, IL
Forelimb anatomy of Canis dirus
Edward Linden
Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
My thesis project is titled "Size shape change in Rancho La Brea dire wolf limbs during the last glacial-interglacial cycle"
Meena Madan
Department of Earth and Environmental Science, University of California Irvine, CA
My current project is titled, "Stasis in Rancho La Brea saber-toothed cats and Ice Age lions during the last glacial-interglacial cycle"
Dr. Julie Meachen
Postdoctoral Associate National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Durham, NC
My projects at Rancho La Brea include work on limb proportions, sexual dimorphism and functional morphology of the large carnivores, as well as nitrogen isotope sampling.
Dr. Virginia Naples
Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Illinois University, IL
My primary interests in Rancho La Brea are in the big cats and the sloths but have also used the collections to help build an image database for my students.
Dr. Joshua Samuels
Chief of Paleontology at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, OR
My research is focused on body size in rodents which is correlated with most ecological and physiological characteristics of animals.
Dr. Blaine Schubert
Department of Geosciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN
My research interests at Rancho La Brea include microwear on carnivore teeth and Arctodus cranial morphology
Eric Scott
Curator of Paleontology, San Bernardino County Museum, CA and Associate Researcher at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.
My main focus at Rancho La Brea is on the Equuidae. I am currently working on resolving the taxonomic status of the large La Brea horse and its population structure.
Christopher A. Shaw
Research Associate, George C. Page Museum
My current research includes, western North American vertebrate fossil faunas, saber-toothed cat phylogeny, natural history, and paleopathology. For more than 30 years I have conducted regular collecting expeditions to Sonora, Mexico, in conjunction with an international team of paleontologists from the United States and Mexico.
Dr. Joy Ward
My research interests focus on the evolutionary responses of plants to changing carbon dioxide over geologic time scales.
www2.ku.edu/~eeb/faculty/ward.shtml
Dr. Sue Ware
Research Associate, Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits
Most of my research revolves around pathologies in large carnivores.