Fossils tell us the story of our evolutionary past. These stories provide unparalleled details into how our bodies look and function and in rare cases, we can study how disease has evolved deep in our evolutionary history. Join Megan Whitney as she explores how we study disease in the fossil record and highlights some of these rare and exciting finds that can tell us about disease in our modern day.
This lecture is recommended for ages 8 and older.
Tickets are $10/person per lecture. Add an exhibition ticket and receive $5 off admission to Life Before Dinosaurs: The Permian Monsters. Exhibition open from 5–7pm. Lecture begins at 7pm.
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With media support from WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio.
About our speaker
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Megan is a postdoctoral researcher at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University and completed her PhD at the University of Washington. Megan studies the micro-structural anatomy of fossil bones and teeth to tell the stories of animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. This work has taken her to museums all over the world and fieldwork in places such as Zambia and Antarctica. Her goal as a researcher is to tell individual animals’ stories in order to paint a broader picture of the evolutionary history of vertebrate life.
ABOUT THE LECTURE SERIES
Enjoy a series of scientific talks on the diversity of the Permian period and factors that led to the mass extinction. Each month, we will feature a presentation from a renowned scientist (7–8pm) and an evening viewing of the special exhibition Life Before Dinosaurs: The Permian Monsters (open 5–7pm). Other lecture dates:
June 2: Rewiring the Biosphere: Ecosystem collapse and recovery after the Permian Mass Extinction
Dr. Peter Roopnarine, California Academy of Sciences
August 11: We Ate Dinosaurs: Getting to know our synapsid ancestors
Dr. Christian Kammerer, NC Museum of Natural Sciences