Lauren Sallan

Lauren Cole Sallan is an American academic who is the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a paleobiologist who uses big data analytics to study macroevolution. She is a 2019 Senior TED fellow.

Lauren Sallan
Born
Lauren Cole Sallan

Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Alma materFlorida Atlantic University (BS, MS)
University of Chicago (MS, PhD)
Known forPaleobiology
Ichthyology
Macroevolution
Scientific career
InstitutionsUniversity of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
Doctoral advisorMichael Coates

Early life and education

Sallan was born in Chicago.[1] She studied biology at Florida Atlantic University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science, cum laude, in 2003, and a Master of Science in biology in 2007 [2] She then earned a Master of Science in organismal biology and a PhD in integrative biology from the University of Chicago.[3]

Career

Research

Sallan worked on End-Devonian extinction; a critical stage in the evolution of vertebrates. She found that the Hangenberg event was immensely important for modern biodiversity and a bottleneck in the evolutionary history of vertebrates.[4] During her PhD, she studied the fossils of fish that diversified around the time of an extinction event, finding the head features diversified before body shapes.[5][6] The work was covered in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Motherboard.[7][8] After completing her PhD, Sallan joined the Michigan Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan [1] She studied the early evolution of ray-finned fishes, including an early form with a tetrapod-like spine.[9]

The Devonian fishes of Michigan - from her 2018 paper with Jack Stack
A fossilised Devonian fish of Michigan

Sallan uses big data analytics to study macroevolution, with a particular focus on palaeoichthyology.[10] She uses data mining to identify why some species of fish persist whilst others die off. She joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2014.[11] She leads a large research lab, which includes undergraduate and graduate students.[12] In 2015, she developed a dataset of fish fossils with then undergraduate student Andrew Galimberti.[1] Their analysis showed that during the Devonian period vertebrates gradually increased in size, obeying Cope's rule. She has continued to study the Hangenberg event, finding small-bodied species with rapid reproduction dominate post-extinction communities.[13] She investigated the fossils of the Aetheretmon and found how ray-finned fishes got their tail fins, which are distinct from the tails of land animals.[14] The fossils were recovered from Scotland, and included some of the smallest (3 cm long) and least studied species.[14]

Sallan compiled a comprehensive database of 3,000 fish fossils found between 360 and 480 million years ago.[15] By investigating these fossils, Sallan found that the earliest vertebrate fossils were found near the shore, perhaps due to stronger skeletons due to crashing waves.[16] She studied 31,526 fish species ad found the fastest species formation rates occurred in the coldest oceans.[17] Cold water fish form new species at twice the rate of tropical fish.[17][18] She was named the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2017.[19] The position is for an "outstanding faculty member whose pursuits exemplify the integration of knowledge".[19]

Public engagement

She was one of fifteen people to be selected as a TED fellow in 2017.[20] In April 2017 she delivered a talk entitled "How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction".[21] She developed a TEDed class on why fish were fish shaped, and why they didn't swim upside down.[22][23] She was featured in the popular science book The Ends of the World, written by Peter Brannen.[24] In 2018 Sallan was awarded the University of Chicago Medical and Biological Sciences Distinguished Service Award.[3]

Awards and honors

References
  1. Abouelnaga, Karim. "This Young Scientist Is Researching How To Prevent The Next Global Extinction". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  2. "People | Earth & Environmental Science". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  3. "Lauren Sallan, SM’09, PHD’12 | Medical and Biological Sciences Alumni Association". medbsd.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  4. Coates, Michael I.; Sallan, Lauren Cole (2010-06-01). "End-Devonian extinction and a bottleneck in the early evolution of modern jawed vertebrates". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 107 (22): 10131–10135. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10710131S. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914000107. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 2890420. PMID 20479258.
  5. "'Head-first' diversity shown to drive vertebrate evolution". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  6. Sallan, L. C.; Friedman, M. (2011-12-21). "Heads or tails: staged diversification in vertebrate evolutionary radiations". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1735): 2025–2032. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2454. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3311904. PMID 22189401.
  7. Zimmer, Carl (2015-11-12). "After a Mass Extinction, Only the Small Survive". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  8. Ferreira, Becky (2015-11-15). "When It Comes to Surviving Mass Extinctions, Smaller Is Better". Motherboard. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  9. Sallan, L. C. (2012-05-23). "Tetrapod-like axial regionalization in an early ray-finned fish". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 279 (1741): 3264–3271. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.0784. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 3385743. PMID 22628471.
  10. "Lauren Sallan". Burpee Museum of Natural History. 2018-02-15. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  11. "Paleobiologist Probes Fossil Record for Perspective on Today". Omnia. 2017-06-02. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  12. "Penn Junior Jack Stack Is Pursuing His Paleontological Dream". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  13. Galimberti, Andrew K.; Sallan, Lauren (2015-11-13). "Body-size reduction in vertebrates following the end-Devonian mass extinction". Science. 350 (6262): 812–815. Bibcode:2015Sci...350..812S. doi:10.1126/science.aac7373. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26564854.
  14. "Fish fossils reveal how tails evolved, Penn professor finds". EurekAlert!. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  15. Sansom, Ivan J.; Bird, Charlotte M.; Sansom, Robert S.; Friedman, Matt; Sallan, Lauren (2018-10-26). "The nearshore cradle of early vertebrate diversification". Science. 362 (6413): 460–464. Bibcode:2018Sci...362..460S. doi:10.1126/science.aar3689. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30361374. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 October 2018.
  16. Marshall, Michael. "The Four Coolest Discoveries In Paleontology In 2018". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  17. "Frigid polar oceans, not coral reefs, are hot spots for formations of fish species". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  18. Alfaro, Michael E.; Coll, Marta; Near, Thomas J.; Garilao, Cristina; Kaschner, Kristin; Friedman, Matt; Sallan, Lauren; Cowman, Peter F.; Title, Pascal O. (July 2018). "An inverse latitudinal gradient in speciation rate for marine fishes". Nature. 559 (7714): 392–395. Bibcode:2018Natur.559..392R. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0273-1. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 29973726.
  19. "Penn Arts and Sciences Names Lauren Sallan the Martin Meyerson Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies | School of Arts and Sciences - University of Pennsylvania". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  20. "Penn Paleobiologist Lauren Sallan Selected as a 2017 TED Fellow". Penn Today. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  21. Sallan, Lauren, How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction, retrieved 2019-01-26
  22. "Why are fish fish-shaped? - Lauren Sallan". TED-Ed. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  23. Magazine, Hakai. "Why Don't Fish Swim Upside Down?". Hakai Magazine. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  24. "The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past | Washington Independent Review of Books". www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  25. "The Palaeontology Newsletter - The Palaeontological Association" (PDF). Palaeontological Association. 2010-12-20. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  26. "Raney Fund Award | American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists". www.asih.org. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
  27. "Professor Lauren Sallan awarded the Stensiö Award | Earth & Environmental Science". www.sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2019-01-26.
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