Double Issue! 2023-2024

We’ve collected two years of important news, stories, and milestones in one double issue, sharing updates and progress on UCMP projects, people, and grants. 

Directors Letter

With Covid fully behind us I am delighted to report that our community has regained its vitality – I don’t think we understood at the time just how severe the pandemic’s impact really was. Moreover, we have more undergraduates than ever working with our collections staff, in the faculty labs, and attending Fossil Coffee. Our Education and Outreach team also continues to fire on all cylinders, with the launching of the NIH-funded collaborative mobile STEM escape room two summer’s ago as one of many highlights. Both our undergraduates and graduate students, as well as museum staff and faculty, have once again been presenting at national and international meetings, impressing with their science, while strengthening or establishing their networks of colleagues and collaborators. The importance of these relationships is easy to take for granted, but it is quite fantastic to see our community’s vibrancy. I want to offer my special thanks to all of you who have supported student research, our education and outreach efforts, and our collections infrastructure – as we enter this new and uncertain political era, your wonderful gifts, large and small, highlight for me just how important you all are to the continued vitality of the UCMP.  

Thank You!

Charles Marshall

VENOMventure and ACCESS Paleo

Principal Editor Anna Thanukos and Education and Outreach Director Lisa White are pleased to report on the progress of UCMP’s first traveling exhibit, VENOMventure, funded by the NIH SEPA program and developed in collaboration with the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. This English/Spanish educational escape-style game teaches families with kids ages 8 and up fundamental concepts about evolutionary trees – and it’s a ton of fun! It debuted at Berkeley Public Library during Summer 2023 and has been on the road since, travelling to Stanislaus County Library, the California Academy of Sciences, University of Kansas Natural History Museum, and the Arizona Science Center, among other stops. They’ve also exhibited and presented on the project at the annual NIH-SciEd conference in DC and Salt Lake City, as well as the Association of Science and Technology Centers annual meeting, where their poster won a blue ribbon. 

Next stops are Yale-Peabody Museum and the American Library Association annual conference! Special thanks to UCMP grad and undergrad students Derrick Leong, Kayli Stowe, Kat Magoulick, Tanner Frank, and James Pinto and Helina Chin (staff), who volunteered to help set up and facilitate the game locally.  In coordination with the game, UCMP also published Plant on a Rampage, a comic/activity book that engages kids with science puzzles and highlights NIH-funded researchers who work at the intersection of evolution and medicine. It is available in English and Spanish and was authored by former UCMP webmaster Josh Frankel, Anna Thanukos, and KU collaborator Teresa MacDonald. For more fun and games, you can read about the interactive game she helped develop for the University of Kansas Natural History Museum in the Journal of STEM Outreach. Anna also attended the National Science Teaching Association conference in Atlanta, where she and Betsy Barent, long-time UCMP teacher advisor, gave several presentations on the relaunch of UCMP’s Understanding Science website, funded by an IMLS Museums for America grant. In Summer 2024, Anna, Lisa, and Caroline Williams coordinated a summer teacher workshop on evolution and climate change, based on lady beetle lab activities by Nikki Chambers, longtime teacher advisor to UCMP.

The ACCESS program is now approaching its 8th year! Initiated by UCMP graduate students in 2017 as a collaboration between the UCMP and Bay Area community college instructors, the program offers hands-on, specimen-based paleontology lessons for community college students. The initial program has grown steadily in size and scope, even through the pandemic when UCMP graduate students developed virtual learning resources. Recent transformations in pedagogical approaches inspired ACCESS to create a Professional Learning Community (PLC) of community college instructors and UCMP graduate students. The PLC inspired creation of new inquiry-based ACCESS lessons using Model-Based Inquiry practices to enhance the quality of instruction and train UCMP graduate students to develop modules that draw on practices that will enhance their ability to effectively teach and mentor first generation students. New labs by graduate students Derrick Leong, Kayli Stowe, and Riley Hayes, were piloted during the Fall 2024 semester with funding from the Packard Foundation awarded to Seth Finnegan, Lisa White, and Jessica Bean.. Additional funds from the David B. Jones Foundation supported summer 2024 internship experiences for two community college students, Logan Ridenour (City College of San Francisco) and Gabriel Calogero (Berkeley City College).

UCMP community at conferences

UCMP continues to be well-represented at annual meetings and in 2024 the UCMP community presented at the North American Paleontological Convention NAPC) in Ann Arbour, MI, the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Anaheim, CA and the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) in Minneapolis, MN. Senior Museum Scientists Ashley Dineen and Pat Holroyd presented as did Education and Outreach Director, Lisa White. Graduate students Derrick Leong, Kayli Stowe, and Ryan Yohler presented research as did undergraduate alumnus Leah Kahn. Current undergraduate student Liuliu Gould also attended GSAas a 2024 Paleontological Society Student Ambassador.

The UCMP community showed up strong to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from Oct 30 to Nov 2. In celebration of Minneapolis and Hallowee, the conference paid homage to Prince and Ghost Busters. 

Graduate student Derrick Leong (Liu Lab) received two awards: The Richard Estes Memorial Grant and the Jackson School of Geosciences (JSG) Travel Award. Dr. Juan Liu, Derrick’s advisor, was a past awardee for the Estes award in 2010. Derrick presented on Lateral line comparisons of tetrapodomorphs and Juan presented on Oligocene catfish of Southern China. 

Graduate student Emily Bogner (Tseng lab) and Post doc Narimane Chatar (Tseng lab) moderated the morning Carnivora session where Grad student Jennifer Hoeflich (Liu lab) presented as well. Jennifer shared findings on extinct American Cheetah hearing mechanics. Emily presented on the ecomorphology of Borophagus and Narimane on evolution of sabre teeth. Narimane’s work is also featured in our December Evo in the News. (add link: https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evo-news/mummified-saber-toothed-kitten-discovered-in-siberia/) 

Grad student Sergio Garcia-Lara (Tseng lab) presented a poster on Oreodont mandible morphology. SVP 2024 was also the first for undergraduates Aidan Purcell (Liu Lab) and Ayden Chang (Liu Lab), along with ACCESS Paleo intern Gabe Calogero. Aidan and Ayden’s conference experience was funded in part by a generous Alumni donation.

Juan Liu describing catfish from Southern China

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Collections Updates

This past year Senior Museum Scientist Diane Erwin wrapped up the UCMP IMLS-funded Amber preservation and digitization project. Thanks to nine UCB undergrads, doctoral student Jaemin Lee, a visiting UNAM student, and Joyce Gross (BNHM IT), 1,411 insects in Chiapas Mexican amber are now embedded in a protective clear resin, 1,800 specimen images uploaded to Calphotos, and 1,300+ amber archive PDF documents databased and downloadable via the UCMP Amber Archives in Docubase or the UCMP ArchiveSpace online finding aid, the Amber files of J. Wyatt Durham…1955-1975. In addition, E&O team members Josh Zimmt and Jessica Bean developed the insects in amber phenomenon and biodiversity laboratory for the ACCESS program providing first year biology and geology community college students with online/in-person paleontology course content. 

The year also saw completion of the NSF Pteridophyte Collections Consortium TCN (PCC) and the start of a BNMH-wide grant from the California Institute for Biodiversity (CIB). Aided by Jaemin Lee and 10 undergrads, we databased over 5,400 fossil fern specimens for the PCC, uploaded 3,797 images to Calphotos, and georeferenced and verified 293 localities. With the help of summer volunteer Hana Sato-Kreis (UW undergrad) and two UCB undergrads (Jenna Hernandez and Edwin Tang) progress on the CIB project included completion of the rehousing, organizing, labeling and databasing of 1,230 back-logged specimens from two pre-existing California Cenozoic fossil plant mitigation collections. The Buckley School, a Miocene assemblage from the Modelo Fm. in Los Angeles Co., consists of 94 specimens of red and green marine algae, with a few angiosperms, while the Paleocene Robinson Ranch from the Silverado Fm. in Orange Co. includes 1,136 specimens of ferns, cycads, conifers and angiosperms.

Senior Museum Scientist Ashley Dineen shared results from the 3-year (2020-2023) IMLS project, Curation and Digitization of the UCMP Cambrian and Ordovician collections: Insight into early animal evolution. 24,660 individual specimens were digitized (176% of goal) and 1,114 specimens photographed (111% of goal). Ashley and her team of students also scanned and archived 1,247 pages of field notes and correspondence (166% of goal) and the UCMP education and outreach team created multiple “Science Shorts” on the Understanding Science website. UCMP collections awarded a $100,000 2-yr grant (“Securing biodiversity specimens in the Berkeley Natural History Museums and field stations”) from the California Institute of Biodiversity to digitize important and historical California specimens. Ashley is the new Chair of the Collections subcommittee for the Paleo Society after stepping down as the Cordilleran Section chair (2020-2024)

Undergrad Liuliu Gould was selected as a 2024 Paleontological Society Student Ambassador to attend GSA 2024. Undergrad Ronaldo Monroy was selected to be the 2025 National Park and Paleontological Society Paleontology in the Parks Fellow (Spanish Language Assistant – Paleontology Education & Outreach Resources), with Ashley as mentor.

Emeritus Updates

Emeritus Assistant Director Mark Goodwin with co-authors and UCMP Research Associates Jack Horner (Chapman University) and David Evans (University of Toronto and Royal Ontario Museum) published, A new pachyephalosaurid from the Hell Creek Formation, Garfield County, Montana, USA, in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The partial skull was named, Platytholus clemensi, in honor of their late colleague, friend, and former UCMP Director and Emeritus Professor of Integrative Biology, Bill Clemens. Bill tolerated the collecting of dinosaurs throughout his decades of field research in the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation, eastern Montana, and no doubt would have appreciated the gesture, though not without some good-natured amusement we suspect.

Mark spent most of July in the Upper Cretaceous Judith River Formation on the farm of Dan and Lila Redding and the Redding Field Station, longtime supporters of UCMP. Mark joined up with colleagues Jack Horner (Chapman University) and Holly Ballart (Oklahoma State University) and their students exploring the fossil-bearing badlands of Kennedy Coulee along the Canadian border. Next, Mark and Jack headed to Jordon, Montana to explore the Hell Creek Formation and K-Pg boundary, joining UCMP and Clemens Lab alum, Greg Wilson Mantilla and his crew from the Burke Museum and the University of Washington. Great results all around with the discovery of a partial skull of a very large Triceratops just starting to weather out in the badlands. Mark, Jack, and crew collected the maxilla (upper jaw) with teeth, a premaxilla, and some of the frill. They will return next summer in hopes of uncovering more of the skull in the hill. The Burke crew added two Pachycephalosaurus skulls that are now being prepared for study by Goodwin, Horner, and the Burke Museum scientists.  

Carole Hickman continues her documentation and analysis of the Paleogene marine bivalve fauna of the deep-water Keasey Formation in Oregon. In June 2023 she published the third monograph in the four-part series. It includes description one new genus, five new species, and designation of a peri-seep biotope, a novel region of physical and chemical habitat surrounding a site of effusive hydrocarbon seepage. The novel biotope is occupied organisms adapted to tolerate oxygen depletion and toxic geochemical conditions as well as novel adaptations for exploiting carbon fixed by chemosynthetic microbes. She is currently working on the fourth and final monograph treatment of protobranch bivalves and their novel adaptations. She continues work on shorter publications exploring deep-water mollusk biogeography and ecology during the dramatic of global climate change from tropical green-house to temperate ice house conditions with establishment of permanent polar ice caps. Her heavily illustrated work includes color images, and Scanning Electron Micrographs, and rendered drawings. She is grateful for photographic images by Dave Strauss and scientific illustration by Marla Coppolino. (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/47m7252q)

Jere Lipps, faculty curator 1988-2009, now retired, continues his research on modern coral reefs in New Guinea and Moorea as well as publishing technical papers on foraminifera and other topics with colleagues from several countries, and writing pictorial histories on the Museum of Paleontology (2022) and another on Lake Merritt in Oakland (2023).  The two histories resulted from his time as Director of UCMP and studies of microorganisms in Lake Merritt from 2001-2004.  He retired effective December 31, 2023, from the Board of Directors of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research, Inc, after 48 years and five years as President in three terms and will also retire from his position as Secretary of the Geology and Geography Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) after 20 years of service to the Association.  Although he serves as an advisor to two museums, he looks forward to complete retirement so he can return to full time studies of fossil and living marine organisms on Earth and other planets (Astrobiology).  Jere still likes to help students in pursuing their own projects and careers.

Student Updates

At SPNHC 2023 Tara Lepore was a guest speaker on LGBTQIA+ panel on diversity and equity in natural history collections fields and lead a topical on Disabled and Neurodivergent Perception, Community, and Identity in at GSA in October. Tara alaso collaborated with Ala Costa centers, interacting with four website interns and leading an in-person visit day for disabled and neurodivergent adults.

Former student volunteer Danny Anduza took his online Twitch (paleontologizing on Twitch) audience into the field in June 2023 to work on the Late Cretaceous Almond Formation of Wyoming and excavated likely a new species of dinosaur. In July, Danny joined the Utah Geological Survey paleontological crew for some work in the Cedar Mountain Formation, excavating an iguanodont bonebed.

Undergraduate students continue to be an active part of our community attending professional conferences. At the Geological Society of America (GSA) annual meeting in Anaheim in September 2024, Liuliu Gould was selected as a 2024 Paleontological Society Student Ambassador which supported her trip to attend GSA. Ronaldo Monroy was selected to be the 2025 National Park and Paleontological Society Paleontology in the Parks Fellow (Spanish Language Assistant – Paleontology Education & Outreach Resources), with me as mentor.

Congratulations to our 2023 and 2024 graduates!

A few UCMP affiliated students walked across the commencement stage on May 15, 2023 with our faculty presenting them with honors and ceremonial hoods, and current UCMP students cheering from the stands. Ben Muddiman from the Looy Lab and Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer from the Finnegan Lab and undergraduate Leah Kahn from the Finnegan Lab. Leah also received the Natural History Award and Departmental Citation in Integrative Biology and the Departmental Citation in Earth and Planetary Sciences. 

From left to right: Greg Meyer (physics), Nick Spano (’22), Cindy Looy, Sara Kahanamoku-Meyer, Ben Muddiman, Ivo Duijnstee, Seth Finnegan, Leah Kahn, Maya Samuels-Fair, Charles Marshall, Kayli Stowe, and James Pinto.

 The Integrative Biology Commencement ceremony took place on May 13, 2024. Graduate students Eric Holt (Padian lab), Jaemin Lee (Looy lab), Tara Lepore (Tseng/Hlusko lab), and Kat Magoulick (Marshall lab) received their PhD ceremonial hoods. Undergraduates Mac Borozon (Marshall lab), James Pinto (Marshall lab), Guillermo Roque (Marshall lab), and Zehua (Tony) Zhou (Liu lab) crossed the commencement stage.

Jaemin Lee and Tanner Frank (Marshall Lab) received the George D. Louderback Award. Undergraduate James Pinto received the 2024 Marian Diamond Award. James and Zehua Zhou graduated with honors. 

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