Profile

As an evolutionary biologist, I try to understand all the processes that have shaped the crazy, spectacular, and bizarre lifeforms all around us on Earth. I focus on modern bats, a group that is known to all of us, feared and misunderstood by many, yet cryptic and mysterious to even many biologists. Bats are one of the most diverse groups of land mammals, filling an incredible amount of roles in our world’s ecosystems as natural pest control, predators, pollinators, seed dispersers, and sometimes even as parasites and drivers of disease. How did bats, which are mammals just like us, become this diverse? That is the focus of my research, and I use all sorts of data to try and answer that question: DNA sequences, live bats, and, most importantly, skull shapes. Bat skulls are extremely varied in shape, and all that shape variation reflects the different roles they can play in the wild. I hope to learn how bats became as diverse as they did by studying the evolution of their skull shape.

Most days, I dig through our large collection of mammals for exotic and unstudied bat species. When I find them, I take measurements on their skulls and bodies, and bring the skulls to our X-ray computed microtomography machine on campus. This fancy and advanced device bombards specimens with X-rays, and captures all the reflected beams with mirrors to convert solid objects into three-dimensional models on the computer. I use these models to look for relationships between skull shapes, and model evolution across the entire group of bats.

All the data I get from my CT scans can be fed directly into modern 3D printers, which can make nearly perfect replicas of any solid objects. For each different kind of bat – carnivores, insect eaters, nectar feeders, bloodsuckers, etc. – I will essentially use 3D printers to clone our rare bat skulls, to have replicas and models for education and teaching programs in my community. With enough money, I can make extremely accurate copies, and can even use these copies to design experiments for testing bite force, muscle strength, and other physical necessities of a bat’s life.