Laura B Porro
Summary
I attended the University of Illinois at Chicago, graduating with degrees in Biological Sciences and Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2004. I then completed my PhD in Palaeobiology (funded by a Gates Cambridge Scholarship) in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge in 2009, investigating anatomy and cranial biomechanics in heterodontosaurid dinosaurs.
I subsequently initiated a postdoctoral project in the Department of Organismal Biology at the University of Chicago, using in vivo experimental methods and computer modeling to understand skull mechanics in crocodilians, lizards and primates. From 2012 - 2014, I was a Marie Curie Research Fellow based in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol exploring changes in morphology and function in the early tetrapod lower jaw across the water-land transition. From 2014 - 2017 I was a postdoctoral researcher in the Structure and Motion Laboratory of the Royal Veterinary College looking at the evolution of locomotion in amphibians by integrating data from in vivo and in vitro experiments, computer modelling and paleo-robotics.
I am currently a Senior Research Associate at the University of Bristol working on my own NERC-funded project looking at the evolutin of cranial biomechanics during the invasion of the land by tetrapods.
Anatomy & Physiology Computational Biology Paleontology Zoology