Happy New Year!
Palaeontologia Electronica (PE) would like to wish you all a Happy New Year! This past year in 2019 was our biggest yet publishing over 80 papers! (Not bad for an open access journal run entirely on a volunteer basis!) We would not have been able to achieve this without our amazing staff, authors, researchers, and followers. Thank you for making PE such a success. As we enter our 23rd year in 2020, we look forward to reaching more milestones along our journey as a completely open access palaeontology journal.
For our first blog of 2020, we would like to welcome Dr. Lydia Tackett to the PE team as our new Editorials Editor! Dr. Tackett first became interested in paleoecology as a junior undergraduate. It was during a primatology course, when she had an epiphany after being introduced to papers regarding mass extinctions and ecological selectivity during intervals of crisis. Dr. Tackett is now an Assistant Professor of Geology at North Dakota State University where her research focuses on marine shelly fauna from the Late Triassic. Follow along with her interview below!
What made you decide to be an Editorials Editor for PE?
I enjoy editing, honestly, and I am excited about the prospect of encouraging new views and topics in PE Commentaries.
What will your main focus be while at PE?
At PE I will be the managing editor for Commentary submissions, and I'll be seeking out commentaries on topics I think are of broad interest to the field. PE Commentary formats provide a lot of freedom for authors to explore ideas in research, and I would like to see that expanded to include topics in paleontological application, education, and representation.
What will you be looking for in commentaries?
I would like to encourage submissions on interdisciplinary applications in paleontology/paleoecology, the changing state of the field, and how paleontology can contribute to solving outstanding problems we face as a society.
Do you foresee any challenges?
Mostly finding the time to do justice to the goals I have for my position.
What is your favorite fossil?
It's a broad category, but I love crinoids for many reasons: big producers of bioclasts, easy to identify in thin section, such an interesting evolutionary story, and one of the most mesmerizing among extant animals! Arenicolites is my favorite trace fossil - a deceptively simple structure that represents really significant sedimentary interaction.
Please help me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Lydia Tackett as our newest member of the PE team! If you would like to submit a commentary you can reach Dr. Tackett at lydia.tackett@ndsu.edu.
