Working in Paleontology: Projects, Studies, and Interests

Have you thought about working in paleontology? Have you wondered what you might study or do? Have you wondered who your peers might be?

Az Klymiuk, Adrienne Stroup, Pia Viglietti, and Akiko Shinya collectively hold ten degrees in disciplines including geology, ecology and evolutionary biology, and museum studies and cultural heritage preservation. Their investigations range from plant-microbe interactions in prehistoric wetlands to the evolution of land ecosystems. A typical day might include digging up fossils, preparing them for study, photographing them for research, lending them to researchers around the world, and using specimen datasets to test hypotheses. And they’ve worked in varied environments, including collections at the Field and research sites in Africa, North America, and Antarctica.

Az Klymiuk, Paleobotany Collections Manager

I grew up in Treaty 8 Territory in northern Alberta, Canada, where my family practised a subsistence-dominated lifeway connected to land. I undertook a Bachelor of Science in paleontology at the University of Alberta, where I began working in the Stockey Paleobotany Lab as an undergraduate. I continued under Ruth Stockey and Gar Rothwell's mentorship through a Master of Science degree focused on the description and systematics of fossils in the pine family (specifically the genera Picea and Pinus).

My PhD studies took me to the University of Kansas in Lawrence, where I switched focus from conifers to fungi, describing fungal microfossils from the Eocene (56–33.9 million years ago) during my time in Thomas N. Taylor's lab. I studied a fossil assemblage—a group of fossils found together in one stratum of rock—that was a wetland dominated by plants adapted to marginal habitats. This is how I became interested in understanding how plant-microbe interactions may differ in wetlands as compared to fully terrestrial settings. Hydric (inundated) soils in wetlands structure oxygen and resource gradients in ways that have no counterpart in other soils. I approach these questions through contemporary ecological study and use these insights to query associations and distributions of fossil microbes in the exceptionally preserved fossil plants that I study as a paleobotanist.

Currently, I work as a Collections Manager at the Field Museum. One of the projects I work on is digitizing our collection: We are currently photographing all the fossils of spore-bearing plants in our collection. Additionally, I am working on a collection-wide inventory to physically locate (and record the location!) of every catalogued specimen in our collection: It is, after all, nice to be able to find the specimens we have. This project markedly improves collections accessibility for nonspecialists. Volunteers and interns have been absolutely invaluable in this work, and our progress owes heavily to their efforts.

Adrienne Stroup, Geology Collections Assistant

I have always been interested in nature, natural history, and deep time. And I am one of those people who grew up loving dinosaurs and never grew out of that phase. I have a Bachelor’s degree in geology and a Master’s in museum studies and cultural heritage preservation. Between my two degrees, I spent six years working in archaeology as a field technician. Fieldwork, nature, and a love for history and preserving the past drove me to a career in the museum world.

At the Field, I work in the Collections Center, specifically in the Vertebrate Paleontological Collections. I am in charge of our very active loan program. Have you ever borrowed a book from a library? That’s similar to how researchers borrow specimens. Just as books contain information, fossil specimens contain biological and geological data. The mineralized bones and teeth lend information to what type of animal it was, how long ago it lived, and in what type of environment it lived. All these data help researchers learn more about our planet's history. If a scientist cannot visit our collections in person, it’s up to me to send specimens to them. Hundreds of specimens may be out on loan to researchers all over the world at any given time, and it's my job to make sure the fossils are inventoried accurately, packed carefully, and returned safely.

Pia Viglietti, Postdoctoral Fellow with the Grainger Bioinformatics Center

I got into the field of paleontology through studying geology. I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and at the University of Cape Town, I got introduced to the rich fossil record of South Africa’s Karoo Basin that spans over 100 million years of Earth history. After completing my Bachelor of Science degree, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in research dedicated to understanding this fossil record.

I am a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the Field. Over many years, I conducted fieldwork in South Africa’s Karoo Basin and collated (collected, critically compared, and arranged) collections and field-based data. I used the data to compile a multi-index framework that helps us test hypotheses concerning the evolution of land ecosystems and sheds light on two major mass extinctions at the end of the Permian and Triassic periods. About 252 million years ago, the end-Permian extinction was the largest in Earth’s history and killed 90% of the world’s species. About 201 million years ago, the end-Triassic extinction killed 76% of the world’s species. The periods following these mass extinctions were important for the evolution of mammals, crocodiles, and dinosaurs. I am interested in how these mass extinctions broke the incumbency of mammalian forerunners at the end of the Permian and facilitated radiations in the Triassic that ushered in the age of dinosaurs by the dawn of the Jurassic period. In other words, I investigate how the end-Permian and end-Triassic extinctions created opportunities for many new species to evolve, including an incredible variety of dinosaurs that spread around the earth.

In other parts of southern (Namibia, Zimbabwe) and eastern (Zambia, Tanzania) Africa, there are many fossil-bearing assemblages similar to those in the Karoo Basin. My goal is to time fossil ecosystem changes in these regions to the Karoo Basin's fossil record, which we know more about.

Akiko Shinya, Chief Fossil Preparator

I'm Japanese, born and raised in Japan. After a long roundabout way, I ended up at the University of Toronto and completed my Bachelor of Science in geology, specializing in vertebrate paleontology. My experience as a fossil preparator began as a volunteer with Ian Morrison in the Paleobiology Department at the Royal Ontario Museum. There, I received basic but essential training to become a fossil preparator both in the lab and in the field settings. I continued my preparator training with Daine Scott at the University of Toronto, Mississauga Campus. I received additional training from Bill Amaral at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University before getting the Field Museum job.

My title is Chief Fossil Preparator. My main job is to prepare vertebrate fossils for scientific research, oversee volunteers and students, and manage three fossil preparation labs at the Field. We have a wide variety of fossils in the lab, including fish from Wyoming, dinosaurs from Utah and Missouri, dicynodonts from Zambia and Tanzania, and reptiles and amphibians from Antarctica.

For the majority of work in the lab, we do mechanical preparation—exposing fossils by removing surrounding rocks using air scribes. An air scribe is a power tool that uses compressed air to drive a stylus to hit rock thousands of times per minute, like a mini jackhammer. We also create histological sections—thin sections of fossils mounted on a slide—for the study of the microstructure of fossils and make molds and casts for research, education, and exhibitions. I also do fieldwork with curators, and I've been lucky to go on numerous digs and collect many fossils for the Museum over the years.

This is the first post in a series featuring these paleontologists. Read about their favorite specimens in part two and their career advice and inspirations in part three!

References

Gonzales, Leila. 2019. “Participation of Women in the Geoscience Profession.” Alexandria, VA: American Geosciences Institute, November 15, 2019. Accessed March 17, 2021. https://www.americangeosciences.org/geoscience-currents/participation-women-geoscience-profession.