University of Bristol

Post-Doc, Earth Sciences

About

I am broadly interested in the relationship between skeletal function and form throughout evolution, and the extent to which form can be used to predict function in extinct animals with methods like Finite Element Analysis (FEA). 

I am currently working as a BBSRC-funded postdoctoral researcher on the morpho-functional evolution of bird beaks and skulls, along with Emily Rayfield (University of Bristol), Sam Cobb (Hull York Medical School) and Jesús Marugán-Lobón (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid).  This aims to address the extent to which morphological convergence and functional convergence in birds overlaps, and whether skull form is dictated more strongly by phylogeny or ecology.  This will be done by using a combination of FEA and Geometric Morphometrics.

For my PhD, I performed a Finite Element validation and sensitivity study on the skull of a domestic pig.  Compared to primates, on which many previous FE validation studies have been performed, information on the input parameters that would be appropriate for pigs (material properties, muscle loads, etc.) are poorly known.  This meant that input parameters in the pig models were based on functional analogues, and made the study analogous to a palaeontological analysis, where the input parameters are similarly poorly known. The results of my PhD broadly showed that even in the absence of detailed input data, strain patterns and orientations can be generally replicated well by the model.  However, absolute magnitudes (principal strains, breaking stress, reaction forces etc.) are difficult to predict.