Gabriel Aguirre-Fernandez is a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Zurich, where he conducts research as a member of the ‘Evolutionary Morphology and Palaeobiology of Vertebrates' research group. Gabriel is also involved in courses of the Biology and the Biodiversity programmes. His research mostly focuses on the palaeobiology of marine mammals, particularly whales and dolphins, and explores functional/ecological (e.g., the transition of dolphins to freshwater habitats) questions through the use of phylogenetics and morphometrics. Gabriel is also an adjunct member of the Natural History Museum at the same institution, his tasks involve planning exhibitions and content for guided tours and hosting visitors conducting palaeontological research.
Chenyang Cai is an Associate Professor at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). His current research includes a principal aim of understanding the evolutionary history of terrestrial arthropods, particularly insects, by integrating exceptional fossils from Konservat-Lagerstätten (Middle-Late Yanliao Biota [~165 Ma], Early Cretacecous Jehol biota [~125 Ma], mid-Cretaceous ambers [Myanmar and France, ~99 Ma], and Eocene Baltic amber [~45 Ma]), morphology, and transcriptomic/genomic data.
Chenyang completed his PhD at the at Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS in 2015, before he worked as an Newton International Fellow (supported by the Royal Society) at the University of Bristol from 2018 to 2020. Chenyang has over 170 peer-reviewed publications, most of which related to Mesozoic insects and their early origin and evolution. Chenyang has been a member of the Palaeoentomology editorial team since the journal started in 2018, and he is an Associate Editor for Journal of Paleontology.
Loïc Costeur is the head of the department of geosciences at the Natural History Museum Basel and curator for vertebrate palaeontology and osteology. He works on the evolutionary history of mammals, and in particular of ruminants. He uses classical and digital morphological data to recontruct their phylogeny, and diversification history.
Allison Daley is Associate Professor of Paleontology at the Institute of Earth Sciences of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She leads the Animal Origins and Morphology Lab, a team of researchers who use paleontological techniques and experimental taphonomy to understand the early animal fossil record. This work is focused on studying the evolution of arthropods, and the establishment of complex ecological interactions in fossil communities over 450 million years old. She completed her PhD at Uppsala University in 2010, and held postdoctoral fellowships at Oxford University and the Natural History Museum (London) before taking up her current position at the University of Lausanne in 2016.
Harriet Drage is a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute of Earth Sciences at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her current research focuses on the broad-scale evolution of Euarthropoda and trends in their morphology, behaviour, and ecology. She mainly works on the Palaeozoic fossil record, in particular of trilobites, with a specialism in the evolution of euarthropod exoskeleton moulting. She is also interested in the application of analytical simulation methods, such as Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite Element Analysis, to test behavioural hypotheses for extinct animals. She completed her PhD at the University of Oxford in 2019, then worked for three years in science education publishing for Oxford University Press, lastly as a Commissioning Editor, before returning to academia.
Rakhi Dutta is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geology, Presidency University, Kolkata-700073, India. She is presently involved in research project related to Molluscs’ response to the Early Paleogene hyperthermal and transgressive events from western India. Her research goal is to establish the possible link of the early Paleogene hyperthermal and transgressive events with development of the western Indian basins and deciphering the evolution of molluscan diversity in the four basins of western India i.e. Kutch, Cambay, Barmer and Jaisalmer.
Rakhi’s background qualifications are on ammonites systematics and paleobiogeography. She has more than 10 years of research experience on macro invertebrates. She obtained her Ph.D degree from Jadavpur University. Kolkata. During her Ph.D, she worked on the Jurassic ammonites with special reference to sexual dimorphism, intraspecific variability and their evolutionary and biostratigraphic implications. She also worked on mass extinction events at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary in Kutch Basin, Gujarat, western India and its global perspective. She also scrutinized manuscripts as a reviewer for Journal of Paleontology.
Analia M. Forasiepi is a researcher at the National Council for Science and Technical Research (CONICET), working at the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences (IANIGLA), Mendoza, Argentina. She studied biology in University of La Plata (Argentina) and completed her Master of Science and Ph.D. in the University of Louisville (USA).
Her research is focused on mammals mainly extinct metatherians (marsupials and fossil relatives) from South America, cranial anatomy, systematics, phylogeny, paleoecology, and extinction events.
Eberhard 'Dino‘ Frey is head of the Department of Geosciences in the State Museum of Natural History until end of January 2022, where he will finally retire. He also is external professor for zoology and geoecology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where he teaches Evolution and Biomechanics of Vertebrates, holds courses in vertebrate taxonomy and identification and organizes field trips on general ecology and biology with a focus on field identification. He also reads lectures in biomimetics and philosophy. As a museum person he has not much of a focus but mainly concentrates in Mesozoic and Paleogene vertebrates, namely reptiles, their alpha-taxonomy as well as the reconstruction of their lifestyle and paleoecology, but also human evolution and migration, especially the peopling of America. Besides operating regional excavations (early Oligocene and Miocene) he works in Mexico on Mesozoic and Pleistocene ecosystems.
Dirk Fuchs accomplished a master degree in Biology (1998) and a PhD in Palaeontology (2005) at the Free University of Berlin, Germany focusing on the palaeobiology of coleoid cephalopods. Besides evolutionary aspects such as phylogeny, diversity, disparity, and taphonomy of these mainly soft bodied animals, he is specialized in early ontogenetic, developmental, and reproductive strategies. His current research interests at the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology in Munich, Germany concentrate on the quantification of morphological and ecological changes of ancestral octopuses, squids, and cuttlefishes.
Georgios Georgalis is a researcher at the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow. Originally from Thessaloniki, where he obtained his bachelor and master degrees at the Aristotle University, he obtained his PhD at the University of Fribourg. He has subsequently worked as a researcher at the Universities of Bratislava, Turin, and Zurich. His research primarily focuses on Cenozoic reptiles and amphibians, being particularly interested in their fossil record, taxonomy, phylogenetic affinities, skeletal anatomy, and biogeography. Georgios Georgalis is applying novel technologies, such a μCT (micro-computed tomography) scanning and 3D imaging in order to decipher important aspects of the cranial and postcranial anatomy of extinct and extant reptiles and amphibians, which can be used in taxonomy, phylogeny, and a more comprehensive evaluation of their fossil record.
Felix Gradstein is Professor Emeritus at Oslo University, Norway and visiting Research Fellow, University of Portsmouth, UK. From 2000 to 2008, he was chair of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. Under his leadership major progress was made with the formal definition of chronostratigraphic units from Precambrian through Quaternary. For his fundamental work concerning the Geologic Time Scale, geochronology in general, quantitative stratigraphy and micropaleontology, the European Geosciences Union awarded him in 2010 the Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal. He is PAST Chair of the Geologic Time Scale Foundation and teaches courses in quantitative stratigraphy and the geologic time scale. Now that he has free time again, after completing the two volumes book Geologic Time Scale 2020 with 100 collaborators, he studies the early evolution of planktonic foraminifera.
David Harper is a leading international expert on palaeontology and the fossil record. He is Professor of Palaeontology and Principal of Van Mildert College at Durham University, and Chair of the International Commission for Stratigraphy – an extensive global network of leading experts tasked with reconstructing the history of the Earth. He is a former President of the International Palaeontological Association and the Palaeontological Association. David began his teaching career in University College Galway before moving to a professorship in Copenhagen in 1998. He has published over 15 books and monographs, including several influential textbooks, such as the recent second edition of Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record (with Michael J. Benton). Professor Harper has published over 350 scientific articles (with almost 40,000 citations) and, together with Øyvind Hammer and Paul Ryan, the widely-used software package PAST. More recently, his research has addressed some of the most fundamentally important developments in the history of life, for example the Cambrian Explosion, Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event and the End Ordovician mass extinction. These events occurred over 440 million years ago, yet their impact had profound consequences for the evolution of the modern marine realm. These research programmes address ocean ecosystems and past climate change, taking David to many parts of the world including Australia, Chile, China, Greenland, Russia, Scandinavia and Tibet. His research has been recognised by foreign memberships of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, the Royal Swedish Physiographic Society and an Einstein Professorship in the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Michael Hautmann is a senior research scientist at the University of Zurich, where he has the Venia Legendi for palaeontology. Previously, he worked at the universities of Bonn (Master), Würzburg (PhD, post-doc) and Bristol (Marie Curie fellow). In addition to his editorial work for this journal, he is also in the editorial boards of Palaeontology, Papers in Palaeontology, and Journal of Paleontology. Michael Hautmann is an expert in the taxonomy and ecology of bivalves, which he uses as a model group for macroevolutionary studies. In his current research, he seeks to infer macroevolutionary processes from extinction-recovery patterns of marine benthic communities. Additional research interests concern biotic and abiotic drivers of biodiversity and macroevolutionary theory in general.
René Hoffmann is lecturer for Palaeontology, Earth History and Electron beam microanalysis and head of the microanalytical laboratory at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
René has a strong palaeontological background with focus on fossil and Recent cephalopods and their (palaeo-)ecology and -biology. Further, research interests are focused around early metazoan evolution, trace fossils, and biomineralization in general. His interests further include application of SEM imaging methods (SE, BSE), element mappings (EDS), and crystal orientation mappings (EBSD), as well as the application of cathodoluminescence (CL) on carbonate rock samples to disentangle their diagenetic history.
Key words: cephalopods, palaeoecology, palaeobiology, biomineralization, electron beam microanalysis (CL, EDS, EBSD), carbonate diagenesis
Cheng Ji is an associate professor in the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Her current research mainly focuses on the macroevolution, biochronology and paleobiogeography of Triassic ammonites. She is also interested in understanding the paleoecology of the Triassic marine vertebrate faunas after the end-Permian mass extinction. Cheng completed her PhD at the Peking University in the Department of Geology and carried out one-year postdoctoral research at University of Zurich in the Department of Palaeontology, funded by the Swiss Federal Excellence Scholarship. Her previous research is related to the taxonomy and biostratigraphy of Triassic ammonites from China and Canada and the evolution and phylogeny of some typical components of the Triassic marine vertebrate faunas such as ichthyosaurs and thylacocephalans.
Nicole Klein is a research associate at the University of Bonn, Germany. Her work focuses on bone histology and its implications for growth and life history traits as well as secondary aquatic adaptations and the morphology of Triassic marine reptiles. She has worked at the Natural History Museum Berlin and Stuttgart and at the Palaeontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zürich.
Christian Klug is a professor at the Palaeontological Institute and curator of the Palaeontological Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He studied Geology at the Eberhard-Karly-Universität Tübingen, Germany, and at the Northern Arizona University, USA. He did his MSc and PhD on Devonian cephalopods from Morocco. His current research focuses on the palaeobiology of cephalopods and Devonian vertebrates. He is also interested in understanding the respective roles of these groups in the context of major changes in macroecology and mass extinctions.
Andreas Kroh is a researcher at the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHMW), head of NHMW publishing house and vice general director of the museum. His research focus lies on the evolution, phylogeny, classification and systematics of echinoderms, with a special interest in echinoids. Coming from the field of palaeontology originally, Andreas’ research field has widened to include genomics, ecology, biology and many more aspects of his favourite group of animals, the sea urchins.
Andreas is currently involved in multiple research projects, among them an FWF-sponsored project on the phylogeny and evolution of Camarodonta, a group of echinoids harvested and cultured for human consumption and another FWF project on of the Pleistocene and modern coral reefs in the Red Sea. He furthermore is the PI of an FFG infrastructure project funding the installation of a Micro-CT lab for scan of large specimens at high resolution at the NHMW.
Lutz Kunzmann got a PhD in palaeontology/palaeobotany at the Humboldt University Berlin. Since 1994, he is curator and section leader of palaeobotany at the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden, Germany (until 2008: State Collections of Natural History Dresden of Bundesland Saxony). His research focus is on the evolution of Paleogene and Neogene vegetation in Europe, in particular on palaeosociological, palaeoecological and palaeoclimatic aspects. Besides, he initiated institutional collaboration between Senckenberg and the Universidade Federal do Ceará in Fortaleza, Brazil for collaborative research in the late Mesozoic Araripe Basin, NE Brazil.
Lutz Kunzmann is lecturer in palaeobotany at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg (Saxony) since 1995 and advised several dissertations as well as master theses. Since 2011, he is one of the editors-in-chief of the journal Palaeontographica Abteilung B – Palaeophytology. Currently, he is secretary/treasurer of the International Organisation of Palaeobotany.
Evelyn Kustatscher is curator for palaeobotany at the Museum of Nature South Tyrol in Bozen/Bolzano (Italy). She is specialized in plant fossils and palynomorphs of the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic. Her research focus includes taxonomy, whole-plant reconstructions and plant-insect interactions. She is also interested in plant palaeodiversity pattern through time and collaborates with geologists, sedimentologists and geochemists in order to reconstruct terrestrial paleoenvironments, ecosystems and how they are affected by climate and sea-level changes.
Jun Liu is the professor and head of the geology division of School of Resources and Environmental Engineering at Hefei University of Technology, China. His current research focuses on the Triassic marine reptiles, but also involves the biotic response of Cenozoic biotas (crocodilians and other large reptiles, radiolarians, grassland ecosystems etc.) to climate change. He studied at China University of Geoscience (Wuhan), Peking University, The University of Hong Kong, UC Davis, and The University of Sydney before he joined Hefei University of Technology in 2013. He was also a Humboldt visiting fellow at University of Bonn and University of Zürich from 2017-2020.
M. Gabriela Mángano is a Professor at the Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Saskatchewan. She is an ichnologist with extensive experience in rocks of many different ages from the Precambrian to the Holocene. Her research focuses on animal-substrate interactions through geologic time, essentially searching to unravel how trace fossils can enlighten our understanding of ecological interactions in the deep past. She is the author of four books, has edited three special publications and is the author of approximately 200 scientific papers. Gabriela has supervised over fifteen graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. She was co-editor of Palaios (2015-2019) and is a member of the Editorial Board of many journals, including Palaios, Palaeo-3, Journal of Paleontology and Ameghiniana. She is member of the Scientific Board of the UNESCO International Geoscience Program (IGCP), member of the Paleontological Society Board, and Treasurer of the International Ichnological Association. Gabriela is the recipient of the 2018 AWG- Association of Women Geoscientists Outstanding Educator Award.
Thomas Martin works on the ecomorphology and evolution of early mammals. Undergraduate studies in Geology-Palaeontology at the Universities of Mainz and Tübingen, 1987 Diploma. Graduate studies at the University of Bonn, doctorate in 1991. Habilitation 1997 at Freie Universität Berlin. 1991-1996 scientific assistant, 1997-99 research associate, 1999-2004 Heisenberg Fellow and extracurricular Professor (2003) at Freie Universität Berlin. 1992/93 postdoc at Université II in Montpellier (France). 1999 visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History (New York). 2004 Max Kade Fellow at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, PA. 2005-2006 head of Section of Mammalogy at Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main. Since 2006 Professor (chair) of Palaeontology at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
Daniel Marty has completed a master degree in Earth Sciences at the University of Basel and a PhD in Palaeontology/Sedimentology at the University of Fribourg focusing on Late Jurassic dinosaur tracks excavated on Highway A16 and neoichnological experiments with human footprints on recent tidal flats.
From 2000 to 2017 he was working as a research palaeontologist at the "Paleontology A16" (Office de la culture, Canton Jura, Switzerland), a unique palaeontological service founded in year 2000, that was in charge of the excavation, documentation, and safeguarding of paleontological heritage along the future course of Swiss federal Highway A16. He was responsible for the excavation, documentation, and scientific research of the dinosaur tracksites, that were uncovered prior to the construction of the highway. He still is involved in research projects related to these and other dinosaur footprint discoveries in collaboration with researchers from Europe and abroad.
Since 2014, Daniel Marty teaches Palaeontology courses at the University of Basel. In 2014 he became chief editor of the Swiss Journal of Palaeontology and in 2018 of the Swiss Journal of Geosciences, both journals being published fully Open Access with SpringerOpen.
Christian A. Meyer is currently a Professor of Palaeontology in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Basel where he teaches and works as a senior researcher. His main interests are palaeoecology including vertebrate ichnology and sedimentology. Since 1998 he studied the Late Cretaceous dinosaur tracks of Bolivia. However, he has conducted research amongst others in the Swiss Alps, the Swiss Jura mountains, Usbekistan, France, Austria, Germany and the United States of America.
From 2001 until 2017 he was Director of the Natural History Museum Basel (Switzerland). Following his habilitation in 1994, he was engaged in teaching and supervising students until today. From 1993 to 1996 he was visiting Professor at the Palaeontological Institute at the University of Vienna. His Post-Doc years from 1987 until 1991 led him to study Late Jurassic turtle deposits in Northern Switzerland at the University of Bern and Jurassic and Cretaceous ecosystems at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He earned his Ph.D. in palaeoecology on Middle Jurassic benthic crinoid communities at the Geological departement of the University of Bern (Switzerland) in 1987.
Graciela Piñeiro Ph.D Professor Full Time at the Departamento de PaleontologÃa, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay (E-mail: fossil@fcien.edu.uy; ghp.5611@gmail.com). Her research focuses on the application of interdisciplinary studies to know the biology and early evolution of Carboniferous-Permian groups living in Konservat-Lagerstätten from Gondwana, encompassing as well the taxonomy, biostratigraphy, taphonomy and paleoecology of the tetrapod communities that evolved along the Permian, including those implicated with the mass extinctions registered at the end of the period. She has been the leader of several researching projects on these areas, including one funded by the National Geographic Society. Main areas of expertise: Palaeozoic Tetrapods, Taphonomy, Palaeoecology, Palaeobiology, Biostratigraphy.
Farid Saleh is a Swiss National Science Foundation researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. He earned his PhD from the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon in France and conducted postdoctoral research at Yunnan University in China. Farid's research focuses on the taphonomy of Lagerstätten, with a specific interest in early Paleozoic ones such as the Fezouata and Chengjiang biotas. He employs various mineralogical, sedimentological, and statistical methodologies to investigate variations in preservation at both the animal and community levels in order to enhance the reconstruction of snapshots of past life on Earth.
Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra is a native of Buenos Aires, Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra studied biology in Caracas and obtained a PhD at Duke University and the Habilitation in Zoology from the University of Tubingen. After being Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London, he moved to Zurich and started the ‘Evolutionary Morphology and Palaeobiology of Vertebrates’ research group. He leads a team working on northern neotropical palaeobiology and is the Director of the Palaeontological Institute and Museum at the University of Zurich.
Torsten Scheyer studied geology and palaeontology in Germany and Scotland and is currently a research associate and private lecturer of Palaeontology at the Palaeontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zürich (PIMUZ), Switzerland. He is mainly interested in the evolutionary morphology and palaeobiology of vertebrates, the development of skeletal tissues and the microstructures of bone, as well as the ecological adaptations of extant and extinct vertebrates, with a focus on reptiles.
Elke Schneebeli is a research associate at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her PhD at Zurich and the following postdoc at Utrecht University included research on mainly Permian to Middle Triassic palynology and stable carbon isotopes. Her research focuses on the reconstruction of ancient terrestrial ecosystems and climate using plant fossil and geochemical data.
Werner Schwarzhans is emeritus and research associate of the Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Zoological Museum since 2014. He had completed his PhD in geology and paleontology at the Free University of Berlin in 1980 and subsequently worked in oil & gas exploration for 33 years. His main field of research is the study of fossil fishes, chiefly based on otoliths, and extant fishes of certain groups, which he pursued since 50 years. He has published nearly 150 scientific papers and described more than 1000 fossil and extant fish species covering a wide range in time and space from Jurassic to Recent and from regions in Europe, New Zealand, North and South America, North and West Africa, Japan, India, Australia and Antarctica. Among the publications were a number of monographs, e.g., dealing with comparative morphological reviews of otoliths of certain fish groups (Myctophidae, Sciaenidae, Pleuronectiformes, Ophidiiformes), faunal reviews of fish otoliths from the Miocene of the North Sea Basin and the Cenozoic of New Zealand, and a systematic review of the extant fishes of the family Dinematichthyidae (Ophidiiformes) in six volumes.
Paul Selden graduated with joint honours in Geology and Zoology from the University of Manchester (1975) before studying for a PhD under Professor Harry B. Whittington at the University of Cambridge, Darwin College (1979). He taught palaeontology for many years at the University of Manchester before taking on the Directorship of the Paleontological Institute at the University of Kansas, which is renowned the world over for its major publication: the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. He is now Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Department of Geology, University of Kansas. Professor Selden’s research focusses on fossil arthropods, especially the Chelicerata (horseshoe crabs, eurypterids, spiders, scorpions, and their kin). In addition to the Treatise, Professor Selden has served as editor for many publications, including Palaeontology, Arachnology, and Arthropod Structure and Development.
Hans-Dieter (Hans) Sues is Senior Scientist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. He received his Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral research at McGill University and the National Museum of Natural History.
To date Sues has authored or co-authored more than 150 refereed articles and book chapters. He wrote The Rise of Reptiles (2019), co-authored Triassic Life on Land (2010), and edited or co-edited several volumes on vertebrate paleontology and paleoecology. Sues has undertaken paleontological fieldwork in Africa, Central Asia, Europe, and several regions of North America, resulting in numerous important discoveries.
Sues has been a tireless advocate for the importance of museum collections for addressing contemporary scientific issues and in STEM education. He rebuilt curatorial research programs at the Royal Ontario Museum and the National Museum of Natural History.
Sues’s research and museum work have been widely featured by the traditional and new media nationally and internationally. In recognition of his scientific contributions, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Sues also received an Alexander von Humboldt Award for Excellence in Research and Teaching.
Ben Thuy is the palaeontology curator at the Natural History Museum Luxembourg. After studies in Earth Sciences at the University of Tübingen (D), he accomplished his PhD thesis on the fossil record of an extant group of deep-sea brittle stars at the University of Göttingen (D) in 2012. His research focuses on the evolutionary history of brittle stars and other echinoderms but also includes occasional detours into deep-sea fossils, marine reptiles, ostracods and Jurassic insects.
