I'm an active member of the Systematics and Evolution Research Group of the Department of Biological Sciences.

My teaching recently has been in the following areas:

Principles of Systematics
Mechanisms of Evolution
Paleontology of the Lower Vertebrates
Current Problems in Systematics and Evolution

My recent graduate students work in the areas of paleontology of early (Paleozoic) vertebrates, phylogeny, paleoecology and taphonomy of Cretaceous and Tertiary fishes.

I am one of four academic staff members in the Laboratory for Vertebrate Paleontology (UALVP (the others are Dr. Michael Caldwell, Dr. Phil Currie, and Professor Emeritus Dr. Richard Fox). My responsibilities include being Curator of Fossil Fishes, included in the vertebrate paleontology collections housed in the Biological Sciences Building.

I served as Associate Chair, Undergraduate Studies, of the Department of Biological Sciences, from 2001 to 2004.

• My society memberships include:

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
I am chair of the Publications Committee
I was co-editor, then Senior Editor, and am now Receiving Editor of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists
I was local committee co-chair with J. S. Nelson for the Annual Meetings in Edmonton, June 1995.
Palaeontological Association
Paleontological Society
Canadian Society of Zoologists
Geological Association of Canada
I am on the editorial board of Palaeontographica Canadiana.
Society of Systematic Biologists
Willi Hennig Society

I publish a newsletter called The Compleat Mesoangler and co-editor of the Mesozoic Fishes volumes published by Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, Munich. I maintain a web page for 150 international researchers on Mesozoic fishes.

That group met in 1993 in Eichstatt, Germany, in 1997 in Buckow, near Berlin, Germany, in 2001 in Serpiano, Switzerland, and meets again in 2005 in Spain.


From 1996 to 2000 I was co-leader, with Estonian colleagues T. Märss and P. Männik, of the UNESCO/IUGS International Geological Correlation Program #406 (Circum-Arctic Lower-Middle Palaeozoic Vertebrate Palaeontology and Biostratigraphy), with participation by 150 scientists from 20 countries.

I was also Canadian correspondent for IGCP 328 ("Palaeozoic Microvertebrates"), which drew to a close in 1996. In support of these interests I maintain the WWW page of the Palaeozoic Microvertebrates Working Group.

I participated in IGCP 328-sponsored field work in the Canadian Arctic in 1994 and IGCP 406-sponsored field work in the Mackenzie Mountains in 1996 and 1998, attended the IGCP 328 meeting in Paris in 1995, organized and participated in IGCP 406 workshops in Edmonton and in Uppsala in 1996, and helped organize the IGCP 406 meetings in Buckow, Germany, in 1997, St. Petersburg in 1997, Warsaw, Poland, 1998, Jurmala (near Riga), Latvia, in 1999, and Syktyvkar, Russia, in 2000.

In the 1990s, I coordinated design and installation of many new exhibits in the Paleontology Museum, Earth Science Building.