Current Researchers

Meet our Stellar Students of Micropaleontology!

William Clark

William Clark

3rd-year PhD student
National Alumni Association Graduate Fellowship

IODP Nannofossil Paleontologist (Expedition 397 to the Iberian Margin)

I earned my master’s degree in Earth Sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in July 2018. I spent 2019 as a visiting student/researcher at the University of Vienna, in Austria. I then started my PhD research at the University of Alabama with Dr. Totten in August 2020.

My research centers on quantitative and biostratigraphic analysis of calcareous nannofossil assemblages. I am interested in stratigraphic correlation, stable isotope analysis, paleoecological, oceanographic and environmental reconstruction of marine systems. My dissertation will involve an investigation of the Oligocene-Miocene evolution of the Caribbean Sea using IODP cores. I also sailed with IODP in 2022 to the Iberian Margin and will be working on those samples too!

Here I am giving a tutorial on nannofossil preparation techniques!


Tyler Wood

Tyler Wood

3rd year MS
2020-2021 Vice President, UA AAPG Chapter
USGS EDMAP Student

I completed my BS at the University of Houston in 2019. I am now pursuing my masters’s degree at UA. I am mapping the K/T boundary in the Coatopa Quadrangle, Alabama as the first UA student to work with the USGS Edmap program, and I will also be working on foraminiferal biostratigraphy of this area.

The data from my thesis project will be used to aid the Geological Survey of Alabama in their development of a statewide watershed map.

Here I am at Moscow Landing along the Tom Bigbee River, next to the K-Pg boundary!


Trudie Murphy

Trudie Murphy

Senior in Geology, minor in Evolutionary Studies; Outstanding Rising Junior in Geology

I am picking the living population of foraminifera from the seabed offshore Antarctica (in the Amundsen Sea). It is exciting to observe the living organisms to help us understand fossil assemblages! I’m from Tennessee and have been collecting fossils since I was a kid.


Jacob Helgeson

Jacob Helgeson

Senior in Marine Science Biology

I am working on the BOEM microfossils project, picking foraminifera from sediment cores that were collected offshore Mississippi. I am also very interested in diatom taxonomy and reconstructing environments from their assemblages!


Gabi Barnes

Freshman in Geology, UA Emerging Scholar

I am working on picking foraminifera from offshore Mississippi as part of the BOEM-funded project. I am excited to start working on samples from offshore Antarctica this summer!