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Inaugural Lecture of Professor Sam Giles

Join Professor Sam Giles for her Inaugural Lecture

This is a hybrid event: you can register for virtual access via Zoom . 

From Mongolian Steppes to Museum Basements: serendipity in science and equity in academia

In this lecture, Sam will outline her serendipitous journey into science, which started with a chance comment by a geography teacher, and how it has shaped her career and research focusses. She will explore how the use of 3D X-ray imaging (CT scanning) has allowed her to make revolutionary insights into the early evolution of ray-finned fishes, which today account for over half of all living vertebrates. She will also touch on her work to make academia more equitable, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by fieldwork and the transition from undergraduate study to postgraduate research.

Sam is a vertebrate palaeontologist with an interest in the anatomy, relationships, and macroevolution of jawed vertebrates and fossil fishes. She completed an undergraduate degree in geology at the University of Bristol before starting a D.Phil at the University of Oxford in 2011. She continued at the University of Oxford as a Junior Research Fellow at Christ Church and later a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow, before moving to the University 麻豆精选 in 2018. She works extensively with museum collections and has been a Scientific Associate of the Natural History Museum London since 2019 and was Academic Keeper of the Lapworth Museum from 2018 to 2023. 

Her primary research focus is on the use of 3D X-ray imaging (CT scanning) to ‘virtually’ dissect specimens, thereby unlocking the external and internal anatomy of living and fossil vertebrates. She is interested in the origins and evolutionary success of different bony vertebrate groups and the evolution of key features in the vertebrate body plan. She also advocates for and carries out action research centred around improving equity in research across geography, earth and environmental science disciplines and academia more broadly. 

Everyone is welcome to this event, and all are invited to join Sam after the lecture for refreshments in the Lapworth Museum.