Emma Rose Locatelli

When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by the by the Earth. I began collecting rocks, and would make up stories about how they formed and became part of my collection. Throughout middle and high school, my favorite courses were science courses, but I never had the opportunity to study geology. However, I still walked around with my head pointed downward, searching for new specimens for my rock collection. Everything changed in college when I took my first geology course. The first lecture overviewed the various aspects of geology and paleontology we were to cover in the coming months, and my world was forever changed. In the first hour, I started to see the world in a whole new way. Fossils particularly captured my interest, and before I knew it, I was a geology major with a focus on paleontology. I am now a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University working under the advisement of Dr. Derek Briggs. My primary interests lie in the field of taphonomy - the patterns and processes of fossilization, from the moment of death to discovery. I am working on a number of projects related to this field, including evaluating rates and patterns of disarticulation in Gecarcinid (land) crabs; examining the preservation of structural and pigment-based colors in insects; and elucidating major controls on the exceptional preservation of plants. My thesis is focused on this last topic – leaf preservation – and I am using integrative experimental and fossil based approaches to answer various questions within this field.

May 2014