I use the fossil record of marine life to investigate how animals interacted with, responded to, and influenced their dynamic environments.

My field and statistical evaluation of metazoan influence over sedimentation and “ecosystem engineering” through time is now funded through a NASA grant to M. Foote and A. Miller for my postdoctoral position at the University of Chicago.

My annual field work in the Americas focuses on ecological responses to global mass extinctions, and is now funded by a collaborative NSF grant to study Earth-Life Transitions, together with faculty at the University of Southern California.

Independently and through collaborations, I also quantitatively evaluate varied hypotheses, from animal locomotion to geochemical cycling, that help us better understand the lives of fossil and extant ecosystems.

Additional funding for my work comes from grants by AMNH, AAPG, GSA, SEPM and the American Philosophical Society.