Close
Bogue Fellowship Report: Ryan Marek
4 May 2023
Ryan Marek, a post-doctoral researcher at UCL, was recently awarded a Bogue Fellowship. This scholarship programme supports post-doctoral researchers and postgraduate research students in the Life and Biomedical Sciences to visit research institutions and laboratories in the US.
In late 2022, Ryan participated in the Bogue Fellowship programme and visited the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum (Washington), the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Canada), the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh) and the Natural History Museum of Utah (Salt Lake City). With the help of multiple curators from across these museums, Ryan gained access to many exceptionally preserved dinosaur fossils that would provide him with crucial data points in his work on the evolution of the neck of birds.
Throughout the trip, Ryan was able to access and make digital models of some of the most important dinosaur fossils in the world, including the type specimen of the enigmatic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Thanks to the Bogue Fellowship, Ryan was able to visit four of the best fossil dinosaur collections in North America and learn from multiple world-leading palaeontologists including Dr Matthew Carrano, Dr Kevin Seymour, Carrie Levitt-Bussian and Dr Matt Lamanna.
Talking about his visit, Ryan said: “It was an amazing experience to visit all of these museums, to study some of the most iconic dinosaurs on the planet, and to work with so many talented curators and palaeontologists. It was also an incredible opportunity to see many different sides of both the US and Canada, from the fog-filled streets of Toronto to the pristine salt flats of Utah. It certainly was a trip I’ll never forget”.
Further information:
- Follow Ryan Marek on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryndmrk
- Link to the Felice Lab: https://rnfelice.github.io/index.html
- Bogue Fellowships at UCL