Kiera D. Crowley

Education

B.A. Geology & Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Minors in Climate Change & Classical Literature, Cornell University

Overview

Kiera is a recent graduate from Cornell University with a B.A. in Geology and Evolutionary Biology. She spent a year hunkered down in the PaleoLab at PRI conducting research for her senior honors thesis and now, as a full-time staff member, she is excited to continue this research meanwhile managing all the miscellaneous tasks required to keep PRI and its Director functioning!

Research Focus

Kiera's research interests, stemming from those of her advisor (Dr. Warren Allmon), concern the ecologic, taxonomic, and macroevolutionary dynamics of marine snails from the family Turritellidae. More specifically, her work aims to understand the role of the end-Cretaceous (K-Pg) mass extinction in affecting phylogenetic relationships within the U.S. Gulf Coastal Plain (GCP) taxa of this clade. Current research goals include revising the systematics of these late Cretaceous turritellid species and evaluating the feasibility that migration from adjacent geographic provinces explains the observed phylogenetic trends in GCP taxa across the K-Pg boundary.