PhD students Dana Korneisel has received the Cohen Award from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The awards will be announced at their annual conference November 3rd-8th, 2022.
The Steven Cohen Award for Student Research is to foster excellent student research in the study of vertebrate paleontology by making funds available to an exemplary student or students. Past winners can be found Here.
Dana's dissertation work in the Maddin Lab is composed of a suite of projects investigating the tetrapod neck from a paleontological, evolutionary, and developmental perspective. She is studying the origins of the neck during the first vertebrate transitions to land, its adaptations across the stems of today's crown tetrapod groups including amphibians and archosaurs, and the developmental origins of the neck bones in modern model organisms such as alligators, axolotls and frogs. The work funded by the Cohen award is for a project investigating the functional evolution of the first tetrapod necks-how our fishy ancestors began to separate the movement of their heads and shoulders allowing them to visit and live on land.
In addition to scientific publications, Dana is also a children's book author-having published her fist book for kids in February 2022. Unsurprisingly, it is about fossils. Specifically, it aims to introduce kids who are already interested in dinosaur bones to the diversity of fossils that exist. This publication had lead to a delightful slew of virtual classroom visits and she hopes to follow it up with more volumes on the wonders of extinct life.
Dana Korneisel