FULL-TIME JOB OPPORTUNITY IN PALEONTOLOGY

Badlands Dinosaur Museum (Dickinson ND) is seeking to employ a fossil preparator (full-time) to add to its permanent paleontology staff. It is expected that the bulk of the preparation work will concern large dinosaur material and other vertebrates.

JOB DESCRIPTION: http://dickinsongov.com/2018/12/20/job-opening-fossil-preparator/

APPLICATION CLOSES: 5pm (Mountain Time) Mon January 14th 2019.

Any further questions about job responsibilities please contact:
denver.fowler@dickinsongov.com

About the museum:

The recently renamed Badlands Dinosaur Museum (formerly Dakota Dinosaur Museum; 1992-2015) was acquired by the City of Dickinson in December 2015, and hired curator Dr. Denver Fowler in  April 2016. The museum is undergoing complete renovation and replacement of its exhibits and facilities, converting it into a public institution with an active fieldwork and research program.  

We conduct fieldwork on public and private lands in the Judith River and Hell Creek Formations of Montana and North Dakota, focusing primarily on vertebrate fossils. We have recently been provisionally approved as a federal repository for Judith River and Hell Creek fossils.

Badlands Dinosaur Museum is part of Dickinson Museum Center, a 12-acre site focusing on paleontology and regional history. Most of our facilities are open year-round. We currently have six full time staff and a number of part time and seasonal staff.

Visit the Dickinson Museum Center on Facebook.
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Happy Holidays

Dear GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology division members,

Your new division officers would like to wish you a very happy holiday season and a geobio-ful 2019. I think we're all ready for the winter break (a.k.a. prime science/lab/writing time!).

We would also like to remind you to renew your GSA membership for 2019 (if you have not done so already). As you renew your membership, please do not forget to select GBGM (Geobiology and Geomicrobiology) as your division; the first one is free, so what do you have to lose? By doing so, we can continue to provide you with excellent lunches and stellar topical sessions. We are also working to get the GBGM division listed as a division you can donate to on the renewal page so hopefully early in 2019, if you have some spare change and want to support the division, look for us in the donation dropbox! 

All the best for 2019!

Rowan, Vicky, Simon, Trinity, David, Lydia, Amanda, and Andrew

2018/2019 GBGM Division Representatives

Hello GBGM community,
We would like to introduce the new Representatives for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division. Most members will serve 2-year terms, but we often have student officers serve shorter or longer terms.

Division Chair: Rowan Martindale (the University of Texas at Austin)

I am delighted to take on the responsibilities of GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division chair. I have served the division for the past four years (Secretary and Vice Chair) and have enthusiastically watched the division grow and expand our voice into social media. I look forward to continuing to promote diversity and early career geobiologists as well as supporting your interests in the division and geo(micro)biology within the geological community.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences (Jackson School of Geosciences) at the University of Texas at Austin and my research involves both field and lab work, from large-scale mapping to thin section analysis of microfossils. Recent research in my lab has been focused on reef paleoecology, exceptional fossilization of marine communities, and the geobiology of carbon cycle perturbation events (e.g. ocean acidification and dysoxia in deep time).

Vice Chair: Victoria (Vicky) Petryshyn (University of Southern California)

Hi everyone, I look forward to serving as the GBGM Vice Chair; I have been a faculty member in the Environmental Studies Program at USC since 2016. I’ve had a wonderful time serving as GBGM’s treasurer for the past four years, and am grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve as your Vice Chair. Our division has seen many gains recently, especially in increasing membership among students, early-career scientists, and underrepresented groups. I feel it is especially important to reach out to those who are just starting their scientific pursuits in order to give them a sense of community. This is a rapidly evolving field, and I am excited to work with the rest of the Executive Committee in increasing our visibility at GSA and in the larger scientific community.







Past Chair: Simon Darroch (Vanderbilt University)

I am a geobiologist and assistant professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, with a research program focused on understanding major changes in the complexity of Earth-Life systems. I am proud of all the advances the GBGM has made during my time as Vice Chair and Chair and I look forward to continuing to to serve the community as Past Chair.











Secretary: David Gold (University of California, Davis)

I am delighted to join the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division as your new secretary. I am a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Davis. My work focuses on paleogenomics, or the use of genetic data to study geobiological questions. I’m particularly interested in the rise of animals through the Neoproterozoic /Cambrian boundary, with a focus on the evolution of biomineralization and the synthesis of geochemical biomarkers. I also raise animals in the lab to study their biology, including jellyfish and sea sponges.

This is my first time working for GSA. I see this secretary position as an opportunity to learn about the role committees play in the organization, and to develop my skillset for future service. I love geobiology because of its interdisciplinary nature. There are so many exciting geological questions that could be investigated with biological data, but they haven’t been pursued because the two scientific disciplines communicate less often than they should. My goal is to facilitate greater collaboration between geologists and geneticists, making sure that we take advantage of the rapidly-changing tools in molecular biology to probe questions related to Earth’s history.



Treasurer: Trinity Hamilton (University of Minnesota)

I am excited to be the new Treasurer for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division. GBGM is a growing community of interdisciplinary scientists spanning career tracks with a significant membership comprised of early career scientists and grad students. As an early career scientist with a non-traditional path to Geobiology and Geomicrobiology, I look forward to the opportunity to promote collaboration and community in the Division along with the other officers.

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of Minnesota. My lab employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine the role of microbes in pivotal events in Earth history and how biologically-mediated processes are recorded over evolutionary time. We study microbial phototrophs in environments that mimic conditions of Earth’s past using next-generation sequencing technologies to examine physiology, function, and evolutionary history. Through these studies, we aim to answer outstanding questions in microbial ecology and evolution including the form and function of the Earth’s earliest phototrophs and the contribution of these organisms to biogeochemical cycling in Earth’s past, present, and future.


GBGM Division Representative: Lydia Tackett (North Dakota State)

Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Lydia Tackett and I am the GBGM Division Representative (a roll I also filled in 204-2016). My research focuses on the paleoecology of shelly marine animals from the Late Triassic, particularly how they adapted to changing levels of predation, how they were affected by the Manicouagan bolide impact, and what ecological and taxonomic consequences these transitions had on the extinction events in the latest Triassic. To evaluate this areas of research, I collect large samples of fossiliferous sedimentary rock from various field localities, interpret depositional environments with sedimentology in the field, using microfacies, and microfossils, and correlate sequences using biostratigraphy and isotope chemostratigraphy.


Student Representative (2017-2019): Amanda Godbold (University of Southern California)

My name is Amanda Godbold, I am a graduate student at the University of Southern California. I am the student representative for the GSA Geobiology and Geomicrobiology division. I am honored to be a part of this division alongside some amazing academics in the field of Geobiology and Geomicrobiology. My research interests are in conservation paleobiology, which applies deep-time information to current issues surrounding conservation. The overarching goal of my research is to gain a deeper understanding of marine refugia (i.e. ecosystems that provide relief from environmental stress). Currently, my research focuses on the ecologic stability of reef ecosystems during times of environmental stress. I am using methods derived from geochemistry, computer science, statistics, paleontology and modern ecology to address these research objectives. 


Student Representative (2018-2020): Andrew Putt (University of Tennessee Knoxville)

I am excited for this opportunity to serve the GBGM community as one of your student representatives!

My research investigates the fundamental survival strategies of the smallest size fraction of metabolically active microbial organisms. We research the unique and diverse metabolic relationship of the microbial community to the radionuclides, heavy metals, and other compounds found in the contaminated Y-12 National Security Complex aquifer in Oak Ridge, TN. Research updates and educational bioremediation topics can be found at (www.theremediator.net), and open access publications from our lab can be found at (http://hazenlab.utk.edu/publications.php). I am a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, a Graduate Research Intern at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and a junior scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy ENIGMA (Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies) research consortium. Before my current graduate studies I worked in the private pharmaceutical testing sector as an associate microbiologist, was an Undergraduate Research Fellow with the American Society for Microbiology, and received a B.S. in Environmental Biology and a B.S. in Watershed Management Geoscience from Mansfield University in PA.

Catalyzing Opportunities for Research in the Earth Sciences (CORES)

The National Academies is conducting a study on Catalyzing Opportunities for Research in the Earth Sciences (CORES) for the Division of Earth Sciences at the National Science Foundation and wants to hear from you! 

The purpose of the CORES study is to: 

1. identify a concise set of high-priority scientific questions for the next decade, 
2. assess infrastructure needed to address these questions, and 
3. determine opportunities for greater collaboration with other NSF divisions and directorates, federal agencies, and domestic and international partners.

The CORES committee strongly feels that this study must be informed by vigorous community input from across the entire spectrum of Earth sciences. One of the ways we are soliciting input is through a questionnaire assessing your ideas about upcoming research priorities: www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4717567/CORES-Community-Input

The CORES committee will also be holding a listening session at the 2018 AGU Fall Meeting: Wednesday, December 12, 12:30-1:30pm at the National Academies' Keck Center (500 5^th St NW). Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/agu-cores-listening-session-tickets-53144278969

The CORES site (nas-sites.org/dels/studies/cores) provides more detailed information on the study charge, as well as a complete list of committee members.  Please go to the website and contribute your comments regarding the top Earth science priorities for the next decade. Thank you!