Christy Anna Hipsley

Christy Anna Hipsley

Associate Professor, Assistant Professor

My research uses integrative techniques to reconstruct morphological transformations in the 500-million year history of vertebrate life, including bioinformatic, molecular, ecological, paleoclimatic and morphological approaches. In particular, I use X-ray computed tomography, or CT, to generate three-dimensional models of fossil and living organisms for comparison in an evolutionary framework, often using geometric morphometrics. I currently apply these methods to diverse groups such as primates, canids, marine mammals, marsupials, turtles and other reptiles, with the goal of understanding how Cenozoic climate change has shaped morphological and taxonomic variation, and to identify the contexts under which biodiversity is generated and destroyed.

Primary fields of research

Evolutionary biology

Vertebrate paleontology

Herpetology

Phenotypic convergence

3D shape analysis

Teaching

Evolutionary Ecology

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