People

Kieran ("KEER-in") McNulty

(he/him/his)

Professor, Department of Anthropology
384 Hubert H. Humphrey Center
University of Minnesota
kmcnulty [at] umn [dot] edu

KMMA-CAITHS REACHE

graduate students

TESSA CICAK ("CHEE-chack")
(she/her/hers)

Tessa's research is aimed at assessing the impact of food competition among closely related primate species. She combines dental topographic analysis with stable isotope data to compare species in sympatric settings to cases where they live allopatrically, with the aim of identifying diet-related character displacement in the dental morphology.

SAMUEL ("SAM-wel") MUTETI
(he/him/his)

Samuel's research focuses on evolution of crown hominoids at Middle Miocene fossil sites in the Nyanza Rift of Kenya. He directs research at several sites in the Nyakach and Maboko Formations, and is a Co-PI at Kisingiri sites, Maboko Island, and Fort Ternan. Samuel is also acting Head of Paleontology at the National Museums of Kenya.

ABBEY HALL
(she/her/hers)

Abbey's work concerns the composition of fossil mammal communities as it reflects environmental, chronologic, and biogeographic factors. She is focusing on Early Miocene mammals from Rusinga and Mfangano Islands to interpret their evolving community structures over ca. 3 million years of fossiliferous sediments in that geological sequence.

MADELAINE ("MAD-ə-lin") WALKER
(she/her/hers)

Madelaine's interests relate to the interactions among diet, life history, and environment, and what they can tell us about primate paleobiology. She is currently developing her dissertation research topic around a theme of comparative life histories in Early Miocene catarrhines.

RISA ("REE-suh") LUTHER
(she/her/hers)

Risa's interests center on catarrhine adaptive evolution, focusing on dietary signals inferable across the adult lifespan of an organism. Her research combines dental topographic analysis with surface shape segmentation to differentiate macroscopic tooth wear associated with distinct dietary behaviors.

AFFILIATED SCHOLARS
(shesɪz/hersɪz/theirsɪz)

The primary area of research for Shillelagh (shə-LAY-lee) and Saoirse (SEER-shə) is small mammal behavior, focusing particularly on Sciduridae and Leporidae. They secondarily specialize in early warning mechanisms for defense against hostile elements such as deer, plastic bags, and neighbors.

undergraduate researchers

PETER LARK

Peter works on the Minnesota Wolf Project, a collaboration between the university and the Minnesota DNR. He has added new 3D landmark data to the current dataset of nearly 200 specimens and is now formulating a senior capstone project based on these specimens.

LINDSEY SUMSTAD

Lindsey has volunteered for three semesters on the Minnesota Wolf Project, a collaboration between the university and the Minnesota DNR. Her role in the project is collecting 3D cranial landmark data to expand our sample size.