Announcements & News from the StevensLab

• Over sabbatical, Stevens and O’Connor join University of Cambridge as Distinguished Visiting Scholars
• Two new species of fossil sengis described from the late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation, Tanzania
• Emily Feist joins OHIO Museum Complex in new Crane Hollow AmeriCorps role
• OHIO Museum Complex launches Outdoor Museum .
• Geobios volume published on PalEurAfrica Project .
• Rukwa Rift Basin Team announce new lungfish finds from the Nsungwe Formation
• Earliest fossil evidence of file snakes from late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation offer a novel calibration point for divergence of Lamprophiidae
• Stevens awarded OHIO Distinguished Professor .
• Eileen Wyza leads study on Spatial dynamics and activity patterns of Madagascar’s keystone carnivore, the fosa ( Cryptoprocta ferox ) .
• The secret life of Madagascar’s largest carnivore in a vanishing forest .
• Karie Whitman leads study on food security, nutrition, and sustainable rice agriculture in Maromizaha, Madagascar .
• Annalisa Weber leads study published in Frontiers in Public Health on human-gorilla spacing during tourism encounters in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, Uganda .
• Tourists pose continued risk to endangered mountain gorillas during ecotourism encounters .
• Stevens contributes to Smithsonian NMNH Deep Time Exhibition .
• Simbakubwa makes it into Discover Magazine’s top 50 discoveries in 2019!
• RRBP team reports earliest fossil evidence of the African Clawed Frog from sub-Saharan Africa .
• Borths and Stevens describe gigantic hyaenodont from early Miocene of eastern Africa .
• RRBP team reports the first mammal from the Turonian - Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of mainland Africa .
• More on Simbakubwa .
• Stevens wins award at Ohio Newsmakers gala!
• Former student Karie Whitman embarks on Fulbright Research Fellowship in Madagascar!
• Nature Communications publication: Fossil lemurs from Egypt and Kenya suggest an African origin for Madagascar’s aye-aye .
• BBC: New perspectives on how lemurs got to Madagascar .
• StevensLab NSF Postdoc Matt Borths becomes new Curator of Duke University Division of Fossil Primates!
• MSES Graduate Student Kelly Flanigan returns from Madagascar, with new data on Eupleres ; becomes Assistant Director of Environmental Studies at Catawba College!
• Geology student Ranjeev Epa publishes 6 new invertebrate species from the Rukwa Rift Basin!
• Graduate student Eileen Wyza publishes first evidence of male spatial associations and roadkill mortality in Madagascar’s largest carnivore species ( Cryptoprocta ferox ) in Ankarafantsika National Park in Small Carnivore Conservation .
• Stevens co-authors a reassessment of historical sections from the Paleogene marine margin of the Congo Basin .
• Rukwa Rift Basin team report a fossil gekkotan (Squamata) from the Late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation, Rukwa Rift Basin, Tanzania .
• Stevens leads team to Uganda, Ohio University signs MOU with Conservation Through Public Health
• Stevens travels to meet with Woldia University educators in Ethiopia as part of HCOM team
• UNH Graduate student Sarah Widlansky publishes Paleomagnetism of the Cretaceous Galula Formation and implications for vertebrate paleontology as part of Rukwa Rift Basin research
• Stevens leads interdisciplinary museum team on Academic Innovation Accelerator funding for MappAthens .
• Stevens leads interdisciplinary museum team to win Innovation Strategy funding .
• Matt Borths and Nancy Stevens present at Ohio University Science Café .
• Stevens wins Global Engagement award at Ohio International Gala.
• Stevens speaks in Environmental Studies seminar , Ecotourism class and Translational Biomedical Sciences courses.
• Borths and Stevens explore the deciduous dentition of Hyainailouroidea (Hyaenodonta, Placentalia, Mammalia) .
• Paleoelectronica blog features article on hyaenodont deciduous dentition .
• StevensLab discovery in Tanzania reveals ancient bobcat-sized carnivore .
• Borths and Stevens announce the first African hyaenodont from the beginning of the Paleogene-Neogene carnivore transition from the late Oligocene of the Rukwa Rift Basin!
• Borths and Stevens unravel taxonomic affinities of an enigmatic meat eater, Prionogale .
• OHIO student alumnus and Rukwa Rift team publishes the second titanosaurian (Dinosauria: Sauropoda) from the middle Cretaceous Galula Formation, southwestern Tanzania with remarks on African titanosaurian diversity .
• Rukwa Rift Basin team member Cassy Mtelela leads description of the sedimentology and paleoenvironments of a fossiliferous late Neogene-Quaternary sedimentary succession in the Rukwa Rift Basin, Tanzania .
• JCU postdoc H Hilbert-Wolf publishes Application of U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology to drill cuttings for age control in hydrocarbon exploration wells: a case study from the Rukwa Rift Basin, Tanzania .
• Rukwa Rift Basin research presentations at Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings by Nancy Stevens, Patrick O’Connor, Jacob McCartney, Matthew Borths, Sarah Widlanski, Eric Gorscak
• Stevens coauthors species of sauropod dinosaur discovered in Rukwa Rift Basin of Tanzania .
• Ohio University Paleontologists discover second new species of titanosaurian dinosaur in Tanzania .
• Stevens leads interdisciplinary museum team for Konneker Fund for Learning and Discovery award .
• Matt Borths delivers Ecolunch for OCEES .
• Stevens speaks in Environmental Studies seminar .
• Matt Borths publishes paper on hyaenodont phylogeny in PeerJ .
• Stevens joins OU University International Council .
• HTC student Mike McTernan receives PURF grant for research in Uganda
• Graduate student Daniel Mwania defends thesis proposal
• Stevens joins OU Council for Research and Scholarly Activities .
• Stevens attends PalEurAfrica workshop in Brussels
• Rukwa Rift Basin research presentations at Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings by Nancy Stevens, Patrick O’Connor, Jacob McCartney, Matthew Borths, Sarah Widlanski, Eric Gorscak
• Haley O’Brien receives Romer Prize at 2016 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings
• Graduate student Sarah Widlansky (supervisor: Will Clyde, UNH) receives Student Poster Prize at Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings for Rukwa geology research
• Matt Borths participates in a Reddit Ask Me Anything at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings
• Graduate student Eric Gorscak (supervisor: Patrick O’Connor, OU) successfully defends PhD describing Rukwa dinosaurs
• Nancy Stevens, Matt Borths, and Karie Whitman engage middle schoolers at Liceo de Monterrey, a girls’ school in Nuevo León, Mexico to explore how fossils are found, prepared, and seek clues on how the modern world evolved
• Stevens leads Ohio University MOU with National Museums of Kenya
• Stevens receives Ohio University Presidential Research Scholar award .
• Graduate student Ranjeev Epa (supervisor: Alycia Stigall, OU) presents Rukwa gastropod research at Geological Society of America meetings
• Postdoc Hannah Hilbert-Wolf (James Cook University) presents Rukwa geology research at Geological Society of America meetings
• StevensLab attends Duke Lemur Center 50th anniversary symposium
• Secretary of GERP and Disney Conservation Award winner Jonah Ratsimbazafy visits the lab
• StevensLab hosts Frontiers In Science lecturer Professor Nina Jablonski
• Ohio University signs MOU with Conservation Through Public Health, Uganda
• Graduate student Karie Whitman awarded OCEES fellowship for Fall Semester of 2016
• Graduate student Daniel Mwania returns from field research in Kenya
• Graduate student Eileen Wyza returns from field research in Madagascar
• HTC student Mike McTernan returns from field research in Uganda
• Rukwa team receives 3-year National Science Foundation grant to expand exploration of Rukwa Rift Basin
• Graduate student Cassy Mtelela (supervisor: Eric Roberts, JCU) finishes PhD on Rukwa Lake Beds geology
• Graduate student Sifa Ngasala (supervisor: Mike Gottfried, MSU) finishes PhD on Rukwa lungfishes
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode on the Greenland Shark, the world's oldest vertebrate animal
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases an episode on a fossilized food chain
• StevensLab PhD Haley O’Brien accepts Assistant Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in the medical school at Oklahoma State University
• Stevens awarded LSB Leakey Foundation grant for Rukwa field work
• Graduate students Karie Whitman and Eileen Wyza begin field research in Madagascar
• HTC student Mike McTernan begins field research in Uganda
• Graduate student Daniel Mwania begins field research in West Turkana, Kenya
• StevensLab researchers co-announce discover oldest evidence of 'farming' .
• Termites figured out farming 25 million years before people did .
• The world’s oldest farmers were insects .
• Haley O’Brien successfully defends PhD entitled “Macroevolutionary Impact of Selective Brain Cooling on the Mammalian Order Artiodactyla”
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode on competing crocodiles in dinosaur-dominated ancient Spain
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode on Ohio University's own Pat O'Connor and Eric Gorscak expedition to Antarctica to hunt for fossils
• Matthew Borths is awarded NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology
• Senior thesis research by Will Stevens on Rukwa fishes published in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien publishes a paper on enigmatic taxon Rusingoryx in Current Biology
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien publishes a detailed examination of ontogenetic changes in giraffe cranial vasculature in PeerJ.
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode on the evolution of dinosaur chewing, a project led by Ali Nabavizadeh, a professor at Rowan University
• Matthew Borths co-produces Ted-Ed project entitled “When will the next mass extinction occur?”
• Matthew Borths receives Fellowship of Graduate Student Travel Award from the Society for Integrative Biology
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien publishes morphology paper on mouse deer cranial vasculature in PeerJ
• MSES student Eileen Wyza joins StevensLab
• Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode right after he defended his dissertation about the process of doing research, earning a doctoral degree, and why it’s worth it.
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien publishes a carotid rete hemodynamics paper in Theoretical Biology
• Rosa Negash (Athens High School senior) joins StevensLab as research volunteer
• Matt Borths begins role as Laboratory Manager in StevensLab
• Graduate student Karie Whitman joins StevensLab as full-time MSES student
• Graduate student Daniel Mwania joins StevensLab as first year MSES student
• David Blackburn and colleagues publish paper on Rukwa frogs in Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
• "Disasters in Field Research" text published by Ice, Dafour and Stevens
• Stevens joins REACHE research team at National Museums of Kenya .
• Sabin Conservation Award winner Le Khat Quyet visits the lab.
• Ohio University paleontologists discover new species of titanosaurian dinosaur in Tanzania .
• Rukwatitan discovery video by National Science Foundation .
• National Science Foundation story on Rukwatitan .
• Postdoc Matt Borths's paleontology podcast Past Time releases episode on ancient Caribbean salamanders stuck in amber
• PALEURAFRICA team conducts paleontological reconnaissance in Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Graduate student Annalisa Weber returns from data collection on gorilla ecotourism project in Uganda.
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien attends FossilWorks workshop in Australia.
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien publishes a latex injection methods note in PLOS One .
• Rukwa team receives 3-year National Science Foundation grant to expand exploration of Rukwa Rift Basin.
• Graduate student Annalisa Weber receives grant from the Explorer’s Club to conduct research on gorilla ecotourism in Uganda.
• Oldest fossil evidence of modern African venomous snakes found in Tanzania .
• Snakes Alive! NSF-funded researchers find oldest fossil evidence of modern African venomous snakes .
• Undergraduate student Will Stevens receives two travel grants to present research at SVP
• Scientists discover oldest evidence of split between Old World monkeys and apes .
• National Science Foundation website on Rukwa primate discoveries .
• Science Now coverage of Rukwa primate discoveries .
• Huffington Post , Live Science , and NBC News coverage of Rukwa primate discoveries.
• Graduate student Haley O'Brien is awarded funding from American Society of Mammalogists and Paleosociety.
• Graduate student Haley O’Brien is awarded Geological Society of America research grant.
• Undergraduate Emily Naylor wins 1st prize for undergraduate research presentation at Ohio University Student Expo.
• Scientists suggest new age for East African Rift