Research Interests
Our goal is to figure out how joints work and where they come from – both evolutionarily and developmentally. Much of our work relies on a powerful technology called X-Ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM). Two millennia of biologists, unable to observe the inner mechanics of living animals, had no choice but to rely on untested assumptions about joint function. But XROMM allows us to see inside the bodies of living animals with 4-D “X-ray vision” and to create animations of their moving skeletons with sub-millimeter precision. Our research extends the capabilities of XROMM and integrates it with comparative anatomy to disrupt and transform our understanding of the morphological foundation of vertebrate animal motion.
Area of Specialization
Joints, biomechanics, organismal biology, vertebrate evolution