Lab news
July 2025: New Paper Alert! Check out Manitoba's newest (oldest) fish, Elmosteus lundarensis: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772019.2025.2511879
https://melinajobbins.weebly.com/research-projects.html
Elmosteus made a splash in the media:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-paleontology-placoderm-elmosteus-lundarensis-1.7588497
https://www.ctvnews.ca/winnipeg/article/researchers-discover-new-ancient-armoured-fish-fossil-in-manitoba/
June 2025: New paper alert! Check out this collaboration with colleagues at the Okayama University of Science: New Application of Histological Staining for Visualization of Endogenous Proteins in Fossil Material. We are now able to see collagen proteins in thin sections, in situ, in recent fossil material: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jproteome.5c00078
May 2025: Congrats to Dr. Melina Jobbins for receiving a Research Manitoba Postdoctoral fellowship! She will continue her work on the earliest bony vertebrates.
https://melinajobbins.weebly.com/
May 2025: Welcome to our summer research students! Mitchell Baker will be working on placoderms and other Devonian microfossils from Manitoba. Arison Mintenko will be working on Cretaceous microvertebrate fossils from Manitoba. Kendal Courchaine will be examining how gypsum affects vertebrate fossils from Manitoba. Ashlee Vachon is working on the elemental composition of fish otoliths and opercula. It is going to be a busy summer!
October 2024: New Paper Alert! Check out this study led by undergrad lab alum Sierra Schlief on bone labeling experiments and intraskeletal growth patterns in captive leopard geckos (Open Access): onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joa.14151
September 2024: Welcome to Dr. Melina Jobbins who is starting a postdoctoral fellowship in the PaleoSed+ Research Group! She will be working on ancient armoured fish from Manitoba.
September 2024: Congrats to Maria Hussain, who is starting her MSc in the lab working on otoliths and mining contamination in MB.
May 2024: Welcome to Dev Dave and Gina Bilic, our Summer Research Undergrads! They will be working on vertebrate microfossils of MB and some mosasaur tooth geochemistry.
January 2024: Congrats to PI Kirstin Brink for receiving a Research Manitoba New Investigator Grant to work on trace element uptake in fish otoliths! This will be a new adventure into understanding the development of biomineralized tissues.
September 2023: Welcome to new lab members Bruno Costa (PhD) and Max Scott (MSc)! Bruno will be working on some Microvertebrate fossils and taphonomy of the Western Interior Seaway with MITACS partner the Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre, and Max will be working on face-biting in mosasaurs. Welcome!
August 2023: Congrats to Victoria Markstrom and Virginia Gold for successfully defending their MSc theses on mosasaurs of Manitoba! Their exciting work is elucidating the biology behind these enigmatic creatures.
July 2023: New paper alert! Check out our new paper on the microvertebrates of Manitoba, led by Aaron Kilmury (MSc) and contributions from five undergraduate students who did an amazing job sorting and identifying microfossils!
https://peerj.com/articles/15493/
Also, check out this excellent microvertebrate fossil sorting guide they put together with support from the Canadian Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Award: https://csvp.ca/awards-2/equity-diversity-and-inclusion-community-science-grant/edi_award_winners/
May 2023: Welcome to new lab members Maria Hussain and Brenna Findlay! Maria will be working as an otolith technician with the Environmental Nano Geoscience Facility (www.environmental-nano-geoscience-facility.com) and Brenna is a summer NSERC USRA working on abnormalities in mosasaur tooth development.
March 2023: New paper alert! Check out our collaborative project on dinosaur lips published in Science here: www-science-org.uml.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7877
And some media coverage here: news.umanitoba.ca/multiple-outlets-predatory-dinosaurs-such-as-t-rex-sported-lizard-like-lips/
September 2022: Welcome to new lab member Mira Thompson! Her PhD project will be focusing on the stratigraphy of the Dinosaur Park Formation, Alberta, co-supervised by Dr. Paul Durkin.
September 2022: Welcome to new lab member Ashley Verstraete who will be working on her honours thesis project investigating enamel microstructure in heterodont theropod dinosaurs!
September 2022: HUGE congrats to Aaron Kilmury and Adam Snyder for successful MSc defences! So excited to see where the future takes you.
September 2022: New Paper Alert! The second chapter of Aaron Kilmury's MSc thesis is now published: Kilmury AA, Brink KS. Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunal assemblages of the Manitoba escarpment, Canada: Implications for Western Interior Seaway provinciality and biodiversity. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 2022 Sep 1;601:111119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2022.111119
June 2022: Congratulations to MSc student Virginia Gold for receiving a Geological Society of America Student Research Grant!
May 2022: Welcome to new NSERC USRA recipient Ethan Vallelly who will be working on ecological interpretations of Cretaceous marine bonebeds of the Manitoba Escarpment!
May 2022: Welcome back to UM Summer Undergraduate Research Award Recipient Sierra Schlief! She will be working on preparing and examining fish otoliths for potential contaminants with collaborator Michael Schindler in the Environmental Nano Geoscience Facility.
November 2021: New paper alert! A part of Aaron Kilmury's MSc thesis project has been published in the Manitoba Geological Survey Report of Activities: "Identifying Late Cretaceous vertebrate fossil collection biases, southwestern Manitoba and east-central Saskatchewan: www.manitoba.ca/iem/geo/field/roa21pdfs/GS2021-6.pdf
November 2021: Check out this new collaborative research paper "Growth variability, dimensional scaling, and the interpretation of osteohistological growth data, by Cullen, Brown, Chiba, Brink, Makovicky, and Evans: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2021.0383
September 2021: Welcome to new lab member Virginia Gold who will be working on determining what causes growth lines in mosasaur teeth for her MSc thesis!
September 2021: Welcome to new lab member Christian Plouffe who will be working on the description of a new plesiosaur with associated gut contents from Manitoba!
August 2021: Congrats to Aaron Kilmury for receiving a travel grant to attend the Geological Society of America meeting in Portland to present his award winning poster from the GSA North-Central Section Meeting: Chrono-, Chemo-, Litho-, Cyclo-, and Biostratigraphy of the Late Cretaceous Manitoba Escarpment in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada
August 2021: Congrats to Adam Snyder for getting a Research Manitoba Master's Studentship Award!
May 2021: Welcome to Summer Undergraduate Research Award Recipient Sierra Schlief! She will be looking at growth marks in captive leopard geckos to determine how they grown in captivity.
