​Principal Investigator -- Paúl M. Velazco, Ph.D.

My research interests revolve around reconstructing relationships among mammals, from the population to suprafamilial level, and using the resulting phylogenetic hypotheses to test and revise evolutionary and biogeographic patterns. Most of my current work focuses on the bat superfamily Noctilionoidea, one of the most ecologically diverse groups of mammals.
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My approach combines morphological and molecular data and a wide array of techniques and analyses to answer questions relevant to the evolution of mammals, including but not restricted to scanning electronic microscopy, micro computed tomography, linear and geometric morphometrics, as well as divergence-time, historical biogeography, phylogenetic, population genetics, and ecological niche analyses.
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© Marco Tschapka

Arcadia University Research Students

  • Faith Hoos
  • Grace Ly
  • Anthony Muscella
  • Julia McAllister

Past members at AU, AMNH, UdeA (Colombia), and UDLA (Colombia)

  • Joseph DeFinis (Arcadia University. 2020). Senior Library Thesis. Project: Heavy Metal Toxicants Drive Changes of Health in the Common Snapping Turtle Chelydra serpentina and Promotes its Use as an Aquatic Biomonitor of North American Bodies of Water.
  • Leison Palacios Mosquera (Master thesis advisor. Universidad de la Amazonia, Colombia. 2015-2018). Master thesis: Posición filogenética y análisis de la variación morfológica de Platyrrhinus chocoensis (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae). Defended January 2018.
  • Katherine Turchin (AMNH. NSF SRMP, Hunter College High School. Fall 2015-Spring 2016). Project: Assembling Data for the Mammal Tree of Life – Pantolestes natans (Mammalia: Pantolestidae).
  • Shivam Khatri (AMNH. NSF SRMP, Packer Collegiate Institute. Fall 2015-Spring 2016). Project: Assembling Data for the Mammal Tree of Life – Taeniolabis taoensis (Mammalia: Multituberculata).
  • Devin Hoffman (AMNH. NSF REU, Appalachian State University. Summer 2015). Project: Assembling Data for the Mammal Tree of Life.
  • Alexandra Buczek (AMNH. NSF REU, Brown University. Summer 2014). Project: Assembling data for the tree of life.
  • Beth Gerstner (AMNH, Undergraduate intern, City University of New York. 2012-2014). Project: Bat skull and dental morphology.
  • Lucy Gill (AMNH. NSF REU, Columbia University. Summer 2013). Project: Phylogenetic relationships of extant and extinct New World leaf-nosed bats (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae).
  • Hannah O’Neill (AMNH. NSF REU, Brown University. Summer 2012). Project: A new chiropteran fossil fauna from the Dominican Republic.
  • James Proffitt (AMNH. NSF REU, University of California, Santa Barbara. Summer 2011). Project: Evolutionary relationships of living and fossil vampire bats.
  • Susan Tsang (AMNH, Graduate intern, City University of New York. 2010-2011). Project: Bat dental morphology.
  • Dani Saks (AMNH. Undergraduate intern, Columbia University. 2010). Project: Noctilionoid dentition.
  • Noa Krawczyk (AMNH. NSF REU, Hunter College, City University of New York. Summer 2010). Project: Placing teeth into bat phylogeny.
  • Danny Zurc (Undergraduate thesis advisor. Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. 2006-2007). Thesis: Información adicional sobre algunas especies del género Carollia Gray, 1838 (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) recientemente descritas de Colombia. Defended January 2007.
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Katya & Shivam -- AMNH-SRMP 2015-2016
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Devin -- AMNH-REU 2015
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Alexandra -- AMNH REU 2014