Department of Earth Sciences

People > Staff > Dr Emily Rayfield

Position | Departmental responsibilities | Research Interests | Publications | Further information

Position

Lecturer in Palaeobiology

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Departmental responsibilities

Teaching: MSc Palaeobiology – Biomechanics option

Admin: Teaching quality officer

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Research Interests

My research focuses on how skeletal mechanics influences morphological evolution and the relationship between form and function in hard tissues - primarily, but not exclusively, the vertebrate skull.

My research uses the engineering technique finite element analysis (FEA) to deduce skeletal stress and strain during function. In particular I am interested in how FEA can inform on functional behaviour in individual taxa and elucidate functional ecology and morphological changes across evolutionary transitions such as the origin of birds and mammals.  Such studies are constrained by my research on FE-validation in birds, testing how accurately our FE-models approach reality.

My group takes advantage of our facilities in tomography reconstruction, FEA software, histological thin-section preparation and strain gauge analysis.

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Publications

Link to Dr Emily Rayfield on the University's on-line database of research outputs (opens in a new window)

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Further information

Dr Emily Rayfield is a member of the Palaeobiology and Biodiversity Research Group at Bristol; the group now has a page on Facebook