Director
I am the Director of the Idaho Virtualization Laboratory. My duties are to decide on the general directions the laboratory will take as well as the basic administration of the IVL, including generating the funds to keep the laboratory going and managing the money we do have. The laboratory was an idea developed by myself and the Director of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, Linda T. Deck, based on work we both did when at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.
I am trained as a paleontologist, first concentrating on trilobites but currently specializing in vertebrate paleontology. I mostly study dinosaurs and related forms; especially pachycephalosaurs, the horned dinosaurs, and dinosaur footprints. Like most paleontologists, I also have a theoretical specialty; in my case this involves quantitative modeling and high-level data analysis, especially an area known as morphometrics - the quantitative study of shape.
On a typical day I work to make sure the laboratory has the funds to do what it needs to do and that these funds are properly managed. This involves looking at a lot of spreadsheets and going through reams of data on granting possibilities, mostly in coordination with Linda Deck and Assistant Director Christian Petersen. I also work with the staff of the IVL to develop the main projects done by the laboratory, and we all try to bring in quality outside collaborators. I also make decisions, again in conjunction with Christian Petersen, on who will work in the IVL either as a staff member, associate, volunteer, or student.
Finally, I am the central person in directing the research done in the IVL relative to collating the technology with the various fields of the natural sciences (e.g., paleontology, zoology, anthropology etc.) and in coordinating our work with representatives from industry. All this is done with strong input from the IVL staff and from outside collaborators.