In the frenzy of the end of a summer of fieldwork, a move to a new place, and an incredibly successful conference symposium, I forgot to share a major life update: I’ve moved to Davis, California, to take up a role as a Visiting Assistant Professor at UC Davis.
UC Davis has a legendary reputation among palaeontologists and evolutionary biologists. It has one of the largest concentrations of biologists in the US because of its amazing Biology, Veterinary Medicine, and Biomedicine programs, and my Department here in Earth and Planetary Scientists is home to several esteemed palaeontologists and geobiologists. I feel that I have to mention Gary Vermeij specifically here, because I have the great honour (and enormous shoes to fill) of teaching his former course on evolution as a science and a worldview. While I’m here, I will also be teaching courses in Geology, including Physical Geology and an introduction to Earth.
On a personal level, it’s exciting for me to move up into a faculty position, even if it’s only on a temporary basis (the ‘visiting’ title means I am subject to renewal each year). It has been very fulfilling already, working with students and teaching again, and I have had tremendous support from the Department to keep going on my research. I feel like this is a great step in my career and I’m hoping it leads to great things in the future!
I will try to revitalize my website soon and post a few more updates on my research (my social media silence ≠ a lack of progress!). I have been going full steam on my mammal research, and I have a whole bunch of new results that will give us some very important insights into how mammals survived and rose up after the end-Cretaceous extinction. Working on projects that push boundaries is exciting, but also time-consuming: I need to make sure I do my due diligence to get things right the first time, because my work could be an example for other scientists (at least I hope so!). In the meantime, there are year-round farmers’ markets to browse, hummingbirds to watch, and sun to soak up–what a change from wintry Canada! More soon!
Greg Funston Palaeontology 