Kiersten FormosoUniversity of Southern California | USC
Kiersten Formoso
Bachelor of Science
Set to graduate in summer 2023. Soon to be looking for Postdocs.
About
7
Publications
1,999
Reads
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63
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am a PhD Candidate at the University of Southern California and Graduate Student-in-Residence at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. I am interested in the functional and morphological constraints of major evolutionary transitions in vertebrate clades. For my dissertation I am investigating the potential controls of terrestrial locomotion in amniote clades on the trajectories of their secondarily aquatic transitions.
Additional affiliations
January 2019 - May 2019
Position
- Research Assistant
Description
- History of Life: A View from the Museum
September 2018 - December 2018
August 2018 - May 2023
Education
August 2018 - May 2023
Field of study
- Earth Sciences, Vertebrate Paleontology, Functional Morphology
August 2016 - May 2017
Field of study
- Geosciences, Vertebrate Paleontology
September 2012 - May 2016
Publications
Publications (7)
Morphology forms the most fundamental level of data in vertebrate palaeontology because it is through interpretations of morphology that taxa are identified, creating the basis for broad evolutionary and palaeobiological hypotheses. Assessing maturity is one of the most basic aspects of morphological interpretation and provides the means to study t...
Biotic crises in Earth’s geologic past offer insight into how environmental perturbations affect the composition of functional guilds within ecosystems. Tiering-motility-feeding ecospace occupation analyses (Bambach et al., 2007; Bush et al., 2007) have successfully been used to characterize marine functional ecology, but similar methods have not y...
Projects
Projects (4)
To determine mosasaur burst speeds and power output based on a range of paramaters and comparisons to extant aquatic animals.
To be submitted to the Journal of Integrative and Comparative Biology.
1) a Ph.D.
2) Understanding the potential facilitative, and even constraining morphological characters that drive evolution into new environments.
To determine the potential role of mosasaur forelimbs in swimming as based on their robust surface area of scapula, coracoid, and sternum. These surface areas would allow for ample muscle attachment space and strength suggesting that the forelimbs were used for swimming more than previously thought. Current ideas on mosasaur swimming suggest a carangiform/sub-carangiform, tail driven scull through the water, similar to whales. However, whales lack the robust pectoral girdle morphology of mosasaurs.
