Pyenson Lab

Who are we? What do we do?

Our research group focuses on the evolution and paleobiology of marine vertebrates. In some cases, such as with marine tetrapods, these groups have undergone dramatic evolutionary transformations from terrestrial ancestries, with attendant modifications to multiple anatomical, behavioral and ecological systems. These transitions provide a series of evolutionary comparisons that form the basis for understanding how these lineages have diversified in the world's oceans, over geologic time.

Our research group and collaborators include many different stripes of paleobiologists, biomechanists, and geochemists. We are always interested in new perspectives and skill sets! Our work takes us around the world to different museums, research centers, field stations, and, most importantly, field localities. Recent paleontological fieldwork, for example, has included sites near Vancouver Island, British Columbia; the Carribean coast of Panama; the Atacama Desert of Chile; and the Maryland coast of the Chesapeake Bay. We have received funding for this research from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Smithsonian Institution.

Principal Investigator:

Nicholas D. Pyenson

Nick is curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of British Columbia; he received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his B.S. from Emory University, and his A.A. from Oxford College of Emory University. Nick specializes in the paleobiology and paleoecology of marine mammals and other marine tetrapods. He is also interested in their macroecology, taphonomy, and functional morphology. Nick grew up in both Quebec and Louisiana, which naturally leads to long discourses about the virtues of Stanley Cup parades and crawfish boils. (Photo by A. O'Dea and J. Velez-Juarbe)

Research Students:

Jorge Velez-Juarbe

Born in Isabela, Puerto Rico, Jorge first got interested in fossils at the age of eight, and every since he wanted to be a paleontologist. Jorge has developed an expertise in the evolution and diversification of sirenians (otherwise known as the group that includes seacows, manatees and dugongs) after collecting fossils of these marine mammals on his 20th birthday. In the summer of 2007, after finishing a bachelor’s degree at the Department of Geology, University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez, he moved to Washington, DC, to work towards his Ph.D. under the guidance of Daryl Domning in the Department of Anatomy at Howard University. He is also a research student in the Department of Paleobiology, at NMNH, where, as a member of the Pyenson Lab, he pursues his interests in other groups of marine mammals as well other extinct vertebrates from the Caribbean region. Jorge relaxes to the blues, enjoys cooking and a strong cup of coffee. Find out more about Jorge's latest on his website or on his blog. (Photo by J. Velez-Juarbe)

Carolina Simon Gutstein

Carolina is a research student at NMNH in the Department of Paleobiology, and a Ph.D. Candidate at the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, where she is finishing her doctoral research on the evolution of echolocation in modern dolphins. She is specifically interested in the morphological and acoustic differences between river and marine dolphins, especially those in South America. She is broadly interested in the functional morphology and phylogeny of toothed whales (Odontoceti), and the paleoenvironments of Neogene coastal systems, including the Bahia Inglesa Formation in the Atacama Region of Chile. Carolina graduated from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, in 2003, and she has a Master's degree in geosciences and paleontology from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, both in Brazil. In addition to having a knack for giving people great nicknames, she is also very committed to promoting paleontology in Chile through the Asociación Paleontológica de Chile, which she recently founded. Follow her updates at her website. (Photo by NDP)

Katrina Jones

Katrina is fascinated by the driving forces of morphological evolution, focusing mostly on pinnipeds. Originally from England, she now resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where she working towards her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University in the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution under the advisory of Ken Rose. Her master’s research, undertaken at Cambridge, England, examined factors influencing cranial morphology of extant pinnipeds using geometric morphometrics. She hopes to use the fossil record to help understand the evolution of morphological diversity of this group. Doctoral research often brings her to the NMNH, where she is a research student, to look both at fossil pinnipeds and other mammal groups. Despite her transatlantic relocation, Katrina always makes time during research for a nice cup of English tea.

Collections Management:

David Bohaska

Dave has worked at the Smithsonian since 1989, first as a research assistant and then as part of the collections management team for the Department of Paleobiology at NMNH. Previously, Dave worked at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, as registrar, while also collecting fossil material from the nearby Calvert Cliffs. His love of paleontology started when he collected from the very same cliffs in 7th grade; his knowledge of the collecting history, historiography, paleontology and geology of the Mid Atlantic Coastal Plain is a boon to working with NMNH's fossil vertebrate collections from the region. Dave is also a peerless raconteur of the occasional hijinx and misadventures that color our activities. (Photo by J. Velez-Juarbe)

Lab Alumni:

Friederike Engel

Fri is from Hamburg, Germany. She studied marine biology at American University in Washington, D.C., from 2007-2011. She worked in the Pyenson Lab during the spring of 2011, focusing on the jaw morphology and variation of some of the earliest fossil pinnipeds in the Emlong collections in Paleobiology at NMNH (which she presented in a poster at a recent meeting). This fall, she will start a M.Sc. program in Biological Oceanography at the University of Kiel, in Germany. Fri also plays professional soccer in her hometown for Hamburger SV. She has a soft spot for IMAX movies about animals, too. (Photo by NDP)