Raymond J. Carpenter
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Benham Bldg DX 650 312
University of Adelaide
South Australia 5005
Australia and School of Plant Science
University of Tasmania
Private Bag 55
Hobart, Tasmania 7001
Australia
raymond.carpenter@adelaide.edu.au
I am interested in all aspects of ecosystem evolution in the Southern Hemisphere, and especially the importance of the leaf fossil record of the latest Cretaceous and Cenozoic. I have worked on fossil assemblages from across Australia, and also in New Zealand and Patagonia, with a focus on the iconic family Proteaceae. My favourite places to visit for inspiration are New Caledonia and Tasmania, as well as the remnant rainforest pockets of eastern mainland Australia.
Peter Wilf
Department of Geosciences
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania 16802
United States of America
pwilf@psu.edu
After an eclectic and non-geological undergrad career (B.A. Penn 1985), I spent three years teaching junior high school in New Jersey and then four years freelancing with my guitars in West Philly. I discovered geology and then paleobotany at the early age of 29 and have never looked back. I somehow moved from the street, almost literally, onto the doctoral track in Penn Geology and defended in 1998. Most of my thesis research was done in residence at the Smithsonian, on megafloral and paleoclimatic change across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary in southern Wyoming. During this time and in an ensuing Smithsonian postdoc, I began developing two major subsequent themes of my research: the fossil history of plant-insect associations and the unbelievable riches of Patagonian fossil floras. I spent three terrific years at Michigan, 1999-2002, as a Michigan Fellow and happily joined the Penn State Geosciences faculty in 2002, where I have been developing these and several other wonderful research projects with my students and colleagues all over the world.
John G. Conran
Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Benham Bldg DX 650 312
University of Adelaide
South Australia 5005
Australia
john.conran@adelaide.edu.au
My major research interests are in exploring the evolution and ecology of major Australasian plant groups such as petaloid monocots, carnivorous plants, Podocarpaceae and Lauraceae. I am particularly interested in the fossil record for monocots and their biogeography, but also study Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic palaeofloras in southern Australia and New Zealand, applying techniques such as total evidence and parsimony analysis to fossil identification and phylogenetic placement, as well as palaeoecology and past climate reconstruction.
N. Rubén Cúneo
Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Trelew 9100, Chubut
Argentina
nrcuneo@gmail.com
My research interests are directed to expanding the knowledge of fossil plant groups found in the Patagonia Territory of southern Argentina, from the late Paleozoic through the Eocene, with special focus on the Permian, Jurassic, late Cretaceous and early Eocene. Of particular interest are the systematic, phylogeny and biogeography of early and modern conifers, ferns and ginkgophytes, as well as their paleoecological significance and paleoclimatic importance.
