What do you do?
I study a group of invertebrate animals called "brachiopods." They look a lot like clams, with two shells, and were as abundant and diverse several hundred million years ago as clams and snails are today. Brachiopods are still living today, but only in selected habitats: very cold water environments (polar habitats and/or very deep water) where predators are few, but making a living (secreting a shell, finding food, reproducing successfully) is a challenge. I am interested in finding out exactly how the living brachiopods are related to their extinct brachiopod relatives, how brachiopods as a group are related to clams, snails, and other marine invertebrate animals, why some brachiopod groups became extinct, but others did not, and why brachiopods today are restricted to "marginal" environments.

Why should the general public be interested in what you do?
Because brachiopods represent a very poorly known and understood group of animals that is living in the oceans today, but in much, much smaller numbers than earlier in their very long evolutionary history. They used to be the most successful of all marine invertebrates, but nearly became extinct about 250 million years ago. What nearly caused their extinction? Why didn't they become completely extinct? Why are clams today filling many of the habitats that brachiopods used to inhabit? What can we learn about long-term evolutionary survival by studying a group that has weathered all the major extinction events in Earth history and still survives today? Brachiopods give us a pretty rare glimpse into what life on the ocean floor was like hundreds of millions of years ago - not too many living animals can do that!

Why does it interest you?
Because I want to try to answer the questions that I listed above! Brachiopods are fascinating but very underappreciated animals; I'd like to make them better understood by both my paleontological and geological colleagues and the general public.

What major advances/discoveries have occurred in your research field over the last 10 years?
I have reanalyzed the genealogical relationships among all the major brachiopod groups, working with colleagues in Great Britain, Sweden, Russia, China, and New Zealand, and have developed a new classification that is now becoming the standard for all invertebrate paleontologists. Unlike earlier classifications, this new classification is based primarily on our much improved understanding of the phylogeny (genealogy) of brachiopods, so it gives us a much clearer picture of the complexities of their evolution, which just makes them all the more interesting to study!