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Lauren Sallan
Born
Chicago
Alma materUniversity of Chicago
Florida State University
Known forPaleobiology
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania

Lauren Cole Sallan is the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a paleobiologist who uses big data analytics to understand macroevolution. She is a 2019 Senior TED fellow.

Early life and education

Sallan was born close to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.[1] She studied biology at Florida State University and graduated cum laude in 2003.[2] For her graduate studies, she moved to the University of Chicago.[3] She graduated with her master's in Organismal Biology in 2009 and her PhD in Integrative Biology in 2012.[3] Sallan worked on End-Devonian extinction; a critical stage in the evolution of vertebrates.[4] She found that the Hangenberg event was immensely important is for modern biodiversity and a bottleneck in the evolutionary history of vertebrates.[4] During her PhD she studied the fossils of fish that diversified around the time of an extinction event, finding the head features diversified before body shapes.[5][6] The work was covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Motherboard.[7][8] After completing her PhD, Sallan joined the University of Michigan as a postdoctoral fellow.[1] She studied tetrapod-like early ray-finned fish.[9]

Career

Sallan uses big data analytics to understand macroevolution, with a particular focus on palaeoichthyology.[10] She uses data mining to identify why some species of fish persist whilst others die off.[2] She joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2014.[11] She leads a large research lab, which includes undergraduate and graduate students.[12] In 2017 she developed a dataset of fish fossils with then undergraduate student Andrew Galimberti.[1] Their analysis showed that during the Devonian period vertebrates gradually increased in size, obeying Cope's rule.[1] She has continued to study the Hangenberg event, finding small-bodied species with rapid reproduction dominate post-extinction communities.[13] She investigated the fossils of the Aetheretmon and found how ray-finned fishes get their tails.[14] The fossils were recovered from Scotland, and included some of the smallest (3 cm long) and least studied species.[14]

Sallan compiled a comprehensive database of 3,000 fish fossils found between 360 and 480 million years ago.[15] By investigating these fossils, Sallan found that the earliest vertebrate fossils were found near the shore, perhaps due to stronger skeletons due to crashing waves.[16] She studied 31,526 fish species ad found the fastest species formation rates occurred in the coldest oceans.[17] Cold water fish form new species at twice the rate of tropical fish.[17][18] She was named the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017.[19] The position is for an "outstanding faculty member whose pursuits exemplify the integration of knowledge".[19]

Public engagement

She was one of fifteen people to be selected as a TED fellow in 2017.[20] In April 2017 she delivered a talk entitled "How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction".[21] She developed a TEDed class on why fish were fish shaped, and why they didn't swim upside down.[22][23] She contributed to the popular science book The Ends of the World, written by Peter Barren.[24] In 2018 Sallan was awarded the University of Chicago Medical and Biological Sciences Distinguished Service Award.[3]

Awards

2018 University of Chicago Distinguished Service Award for Early Achievement[3]

2018 University of Pennsylvania Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Research Award

2017 TED Fellow[20]

2017 Penn 60-Second-Slam Audience Choice[25][26]

2015 International Symposium on Early Vertebrates/Lower Vertebrates Stensiö Award[27]

2010 Palaeontological Association President’s Prize

2009 Palaeontological Association Sylvester-Bradley Award[28]

2009 American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Raney Award[29]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Abouelnaga, Karim. "This Young Scientist Is Researching How To Prevent The Next Global Extinction". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  2. ^ a b "People | Earth & Environmental Science". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  3. ^ a b c d "Lauren Sallan, SM’09, PHD’12 | Medical and Biological Sciences Alumni Association". medbsd.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  4. ^ a b Coates, Michael I.; Sallan, Lauren Cole (2010-06-01). "End-Devonian extinction and a bottleneck in the early evolution of modern jawed vertebrates". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (22): 10131–10135. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914000107. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 20479258.
  5. ^ "'Head-first' diversity shown to drive vertebrate evolution". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  6. ^ Sallan, L. C.; Friedman, M. (2011-12-21). "Heads or tails: staged diversification in vertebrate evolutionary radiations". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1735): 2025–2032. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2454. ISSN 0962-8452.
  7. ^ Zimmer, Carl (2015-11-12). "After a Mass Extinction, Only the Small Survive". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  8. ^ Ferreira, Becky (2015-11-15). "When It Comes to Surviving Mass Extinctions, Smaller Is Better". Motherboard. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  9. ^ Sallan, L. C. (2012-05-23). "Tetrapod-like axial regionalization in an early ray-finned fish". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1741): 3264–3271. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0784. ISSN 0962-8452.
  10. ^ "Lauren Sallan". Burpee Museum of Natural History. 2018-02-15. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  11. ^ "Paleobiologist Probes Fossil Record for Perspective on Today". Omnia. 2017-06-02. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  12. ^ "Penn Junior Jack Stack Is Pursuing His Paleontological Dream". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  13. ^ Galimberti, Andrew K.; Sallan, Lauren (2015-11-13). "Body-size reduction in vertebrates following the end-Devonian mass extinction". Science. 350 (6262): 812–815. doi:10.1126/science.aac7373. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26564854.
  14. ^ a b "Fish fossils reveal how tails evolved, Penn professor finds". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  15. ^ Sansom, Ivan J.; Bird, Charlotte M.; Sansom, Robert S.; Friedman, Matt; Sallan, Lauren (2018-10-26). "The nearshore cradle of early vertebrate diversification". Science. 362 (6413): 460–464. doi:10.1126/science.aar3689. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30361374.
  16. ^ Marshall, Michael. "The Four Coolest Discoveries In Paleontology In 2018". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  17. ^ a b "Frigid polar oceans, not coral reefs, are hot spots for formations of fish species". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  18. ^ Alfaro, Michael E.; Coll, Marta; Near, Thomas J.; Garilao, Cristina; Kaschner, Kristin; Friedman, Matt; Sallan, Lauren; Cowman, Peter F.; Title, Pascal O. (2018-07). "An inverse latitudinal gradient in speciation rate for marine fishes". Nature. 559 (7714): 392–395. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0273-1. ISSN 1476-4687. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  19. ^ a b "Penn Arts and Sciences Names Lauren Sallan the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies | School of Arts and Sciences - University of Pennsylvania". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  20. ^ a b "Penn Paleobiologist Lauren Sallan Selected as a 2017 TED Fellow". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  21. ^ Sallan, Lauren, How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction, retrieved 2019-01-26
  22. ^ "Why are fish fish-shaped? - Lauren Sallan". TED-Ed. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  23. ^ Magazine, Hakai. "Why Don't Fish Swim Upside Down?". Hakai Magazine. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  24. ^ "The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past | Washington Independent Review of Books". www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  25. ^ "60-Second Slam Lets Students and Faculty Show Their Work (Video)". Omnia. 2017-05-22. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  26. ^ Penn Arts & Sciences, Lauren Sallan | Bringing Dead Fishes Back to Life, retrieved 2019-01-26
  27. ^ "Professor Lauren Sallan awarded the Stensiö Award | Earth & Environmental Science". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  28. ^ "The Palaeontology Newsletter - The Palaeontological Association" (PDF). Palaeontological Association. 2010-12-20. Retrieved 2019-01-26. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  29. ^ "Raney Fund Award | American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists". www.asih.org. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
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