Hi! I am Brenlee Shipps, a paleobiology researcher and PhD student in Dr. Christian Sidor's lab. I have previously been a park ranger, a hardware store employee, and a day care worker, among many other things. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Earth Science from George Mason University and a Master's in Biology from Idaho State University. I am passionate about research and science communication, including education.

Throughout vertebrate evolution, beaks have evolved numerous times in disparate lineages to achieve similar things. Understanding how an animal eats helps us to understand how an animal lives, ultimately giving a fuller picture of our planet's living history. I want to know what we can learn from the structure of an animal's beak by analyzing modern turtles, whose beaks can serve as an analogue to the beaks of these ancient fauna, including the ever-charismatic dicynodonts.