Curator/Professor of the Graduate School
Her research: Carole studies the form, function and evolutionary history of marine gastropods (snails and slugs). She strives to understand how the building blocks of life come together to produce distinctive structural patterns.
Why she likes morphology and paleontology: "The shape of life on Earth is more exciting and diverse than anything imagined in the narrow confines of mythology, fairy tales, and science fiction. Bizarre extinct organisms have evolved amazing structural solutions to difficult functional problems. Those solutions are often more sophisticated and elegant than anything seen in living organisms. Ancient life was not simple — and evolution is not progress."
Her path to science: As a child, Carole began collecting and identifying natural objects, starting with leaves and butterflies. Her parents and teachers encouraged her to become an artist because of her love of drawing, but she chose to study science because she wanted to understand the origins and utility of patterns, in addition to its aesthetics.
Selected Publications
- Hickman, C.S. 2023. Paleogene marine bivalves of the deep-water Keasey Formation in Oregon, Part II: The pteriomorphs. PaleoBios 4-(5): 1–51. Read it
- Hickman, C.S. 2016. New species of deep-water gastropods from the Indo-west Pacific Region (Gastropoda: Vetigastropoda: Seguenzioidea: Calliotropidae) with a geologic and biogeographic perspective. The Nautilus. 130(3):83 - 100.
- Hickman, C.S. 2015. Paleogene marine bivalves of the deep-water Keasey Formation in Oregon, part III: The heteroconchs. PaleoBios, 32:1 - 44. (October 2, 2015) Read it
- Hickman, C.S. 2014. Paleogene marine bivalves of the deep-water Keasey Formation in Oregon, part IV: The anomalodesmatans. PaleoBios 31(3):1-14.
- Lee, T., J.B. Burch, T. Coote, P. Pearce-Kelly, C. Hickman, J-Y Meyer, and D. Ó Foighil. 2009. Moorean tree snail survival revisited: a multi-island genealogical perspective. BMC Evolutionary Biology 9:204 (16 pp + 3 additional files) Read it
