In the paleontology lab, three M.S. students graduated in 2022. Samantha Hartzell (2022) examined the evolutionary history of the frog crabs, Raninoida, and her thesis was published in the Journal of Crustacean Biology in 2022. Jennifer Miller studied the crabs of the late Paleocene rocks of Austria, with several new species, published in 2023. Dalton Thompson looked at the clam and snail fossils of several different late Cenozoic formations in Florida. Graduating with an M.S. in 2023, Joshua Tungate studied the tooth-like mandibles of extinct crustaceans. Current M.S. student Caitlin LaBonte is studying the evolutionary history of the sponge crabs and had one chapter published in 2024. Ethan Lionetti, a current M.S. student, is working on Cenozoic crabs of Chile.
At the Geological Society of America National meeting in Pittsburgh in October of 2023, I and several alumni (Adiël Klompmaker, Ovidiu Franţescu, Dale Tshudy) organized special sessions in honor of the contributions of Rodney M. Feldmann to arthropod paleobiology. The result was two sessions of talks and a poster session.
At the Stark campus, students enjoyed several field trips. The 2023 Paleoceanography class visited the Lake Erie coastline. We even got a free tour of the Fairport Harbor Lighthouse on which we got our photo taken.
Principles of Paleontology Spring 2023 enjoyed their field trip to classic Paleozoic sites in Ohio. One site the class visited was Oakes Quarry Park, Silurian rocks, near Springfield, Ohio.