Tom Baumiller, who received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1990, has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since 1996 where he is Curator in the Museum of Paleontology and Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences.  He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a visiting scientist at  Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris) and University of Tübingen (Germany).

Baumiller’s research interests include functional morphology and biomechanics, taphonomy, biotic interactions, and the evolutionary history of crinoids.  He spends approximately equal amounts of time studying fossils in museums and in the field, diving with scuba and submersibles to learn about extant invertebrates, and conducting experiments with tensometers and in flow tanks.