Dr. Emma Dunne

Biography

Emma's research aims to understand how environmental, geological, and anthropogenic factors have shaped biodiversity through deep-time. She is particularly interested in understanding how past climate change impacted vertebrate creatures (especially amphibians and reptiles), and how looking at past patterns can help us better understand the long-term impacts of the current climate crisis on Earth's biodiversity. Some of her recent and current work includes investigating how climate change influenced the evolution and diversity of dinosaurs, examining how the earliest land vertebrates (tetrapods) to emerge onto land were impacted by a global rainforest collapse, and performing data-driven analyses of how ethical issues and the legacy of colonialism influence reconstructions of past biodiversity.