Robert Brocklehurst

Robert Brocklehurst

Postdoctoral Fellow
Stephanie Pierce Lab
Rob's photo
Rob is a biomechanist, morphologist and evolutionary biologist, whose broad research interests revolve around the evolution of form and function in vertebrates. Rob was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, before gaining a master’s degree in palaeobiology at the University of Bristol. From there, he moved “up north” to the University of Manchester, where he received his PhD. His PhD thesis focused on the mechanics of ventilation in archosaurs (birds, crocodilians and dinosaurs), and combined a range of experimental and computational approaches. Rob joined the Pierce lab to examine the evolution of the mammalian forelimb, and the morphological and functional transitions which occurred during the evolution of Synapsids. Rob’s focus will be on creating musculoskeletal models of the forelimb of extinct and extant taxa, to test changes in muscle function and joint range of motion. However, this project, in collaboration with Ken Angielczyk (Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago), will ultimately combine the digital models with geometric morphometrics and both in vivo & ex vivo experimental data to test the functional and evolutionary implications of anatomical transformations in the mammalian forelimb.

Contact Information

Museum of Comparative Zoology
26 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138