Mackenzie Kirchner-Smith
PhD Candidate
makirchn at berkeley.edu
Education
- 2015 M.Sc. in Geosciences from Fort Hays State University, KS
- 2013 B.Sc. in Geology from Indiana University Bloomington, IN
Research Interests
My research focuses on the skeletal remains of fossil and living forms of organisms to understand their functional morphology, species identification, ecology, and biological interactions. I utilize tools such as CT scanning and Geometric Morphometrics on existing specimens from museum collections across the country, as well as my own preparation. My current research aims to quantify the morphology of the raptor skull and reevaluate the ecological guilds of the convergently evolved New World and Old World vultures in 3D morphospace.
