Maria McNamara

Last updated

Maria McNamara
Born1980 (1980) (age 44)
Nationality Irish
Alma mater University College Dublin
Known forResearch on fossil preservation
Children2
AwardsPresident's Prize (2003) [2]
President's Prize (2005) [2]
Hodson Award (2014) [2]
ERC Starting Grant (2014)
ERC Consolidator Grant (2020)
Scientific career
Fields Palaeontology
Institutions University College Cork
Thesis Comparative taphonomy of lacustrine-hosted exceptional faunas from the Miocene of NE Spain  (2007)
Doctoral advisor Patrick Orr
Website https://mariamcnamara.ucc.ie

Maria Eithne McNamara, MRIA, is an Irish palaeontologist. She is Professor of Palaeobiology at University College Cork. [3] [4]

Contents

McNamara's research focuses on the preservation of soft tissues in the fossil record, fossil colour, and feather evolution through the use of laboratory analytical techniques, including FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, SEM, TEM, synchrotron-XRF and XANES. Furthermore, controlled laboratory-based taphonomic experiments that simulate aspects of the fossilization process are done to illustrate how information on biological structures and chemistry is lost during decay and diagenesis, and help to predict what sort of information is likely to preserve in fossils.

Life and work

McNamara obtained her undergraduate degree in Earth Sciences at the University of Galway in 2002. In 2007 she was awarded a PhD by University College Dublin (UCD) in 2007 with a thesis focusing on taphonomy. [3] After a two year postdoc at UCD, McNamara spent a year as a geopark geologist at the Burren and Cliffs of Moher Geopark. [5] She returned to academia in 2009 after being awarded a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University. [5] In 2012 McNamara did further postdoctoral research on feather coloration at the University of Bristol, and in 2013 she was given the position of lecturer at University College Cork (UCC). [3]

In 2016 McNamara was one of the eight women to be painted by Blaise Smith in honour of being the recipient of European Research Council Starter Grants. [6] The painting was exhibited at the United Nations headquarters and is now on permanent exhibition at the Royal Irish Academy. [7] McNamara became professor at UCC in 2020. [3]

In 2020 McNamara became one of only a handful of Irish scientists to be awarded a second European Research Council grant, with the award of a European Research Council Consolidator Grant.

McNamara is strongly active in the area of public engagement of science and has hosted exhibits, science festivals, and conferences. She runs a major public engagement project focussed on the fossils of Ireland, called Ireland's Fossil Heritage, that has directly reached over 1000 schoolchildren, and over 30,000 members of the public, in Ireland. [8] [9] She has also appeared on RTE's documentary The Island. [10]

In 2024 under the Science Foundation Ireland Discover programme, McNamara was one of the awardees and granted €300,000 to continue the expansion of Ireland's Fossil Heritage project. [11]

She was made a member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2024. [12]

Accolades

Publications

Selected list

Exhaustive list

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feather</span> Body-covering structure of birds

Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an example of a complex evolutionary novelty. They are among the characteristics that distinguish the extant birds from other living groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tadpole</span> Larval stage in the life cycle of an amphibian

A tadpole or polliwog is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found in adult amphibians such as a lateral line, gills and swimming tails. As they undergo metamorphosis, they start to develop functional lungs for breathing air, and the diet of tadpoles changes drastically.

<i>Tullimonstrum</i> Extinct genus of soft-bodied sea animals

Tullimonstrum, colloquially known as the Tully monster or sometimes Tully's monster, is an extinct genus of soft-bodied bilaterian animal that lived in shallow tropical coastal waters of muddy estuaries during the Pennsylvanian geological period, about 300 million years ago. A single species, T. gregarium, is known. Examples of Tullimonstrum have been found only in the Essex biota, a smaller section of the Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, United States. Its classification has been the subject of controversy, and interpretations of the fossil have likened it to molluscs, arthropods, conodonts, worms, tunicates, and vertebrates. This creature had a mostly cigar-shaped body, with a triangular tail fin, two long stalked eyes, and a proboscis tipped with a mouth-like appendage. Based on the fossils, it seems this creature was a nektonic carnivore that hunted in the ocean’s water column. When Tullimonstrum was alive, Illinois was a mixture of ecosystems like muddy estuaries, marine environments, and rivers and lakes. Fossils of other organisms like crustacean Belotelson, the cnidarian Essexella, and the elasmobranch fish Bandringa have been found alongside Tullimonstrum.

<i>Sinosauropteryx</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Sinosauropteryx is a compsognathid dinosaur. Described in 1996, it was the first dinosaur taxon outside of Avialae to be found with evidence of feathers. It was covered with a coat of very simple filament-like feathers. Structures that indicate colouration have also been preserved in some of its feathers, which makes Sinosauropteryx the first non-avialian dinosaurs where colouration has been determined. The colouration includes a reddish and light banded tail. Some contention has arisen with an alternative interpretation of the filamentous impression as remains of collagen fibres, but this has not been widely accepted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melanosome</span> Organelle found in animal cells used for the synthesis, storage and transport of melanin

A melanosome is an organelle found in animal cells and is the site for synthesis, storage and transport of melanin, the most common light-absorbing pigment found in the animal kingdom. Melanosomes are responsible for color and photoprotection in animal cells and tissues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coelurosauria</span> Clade of dinosaurs

Coelurosauria is the clade containing all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds than to carnosaurs.

<i>Beipiaosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Beipiaosaurus is a genus of therizinosauroid theropod dinosaurs that lived in China during the Early Cretaceous in the Yixian Formation. The first remains were found in 1996 and formally described in 1999. Before the discovery of Yutyrannus, Beipiaosaurus were among the heaviest dinosaurs known from direct evidence to be feathered. Beipiaosaurus is known from three reported specimens. Numerous impressions of feather structures were preserved that allowed researchers to determine the feathering color which turned out to be brownish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feathered dinosaur</span> Dinosaur with feathers

A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. That includes all species of birds, and in recent decades evidence has accumulated that many non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form. The extent to which feathers or feather-like structures were present in dinosaurs as a whole is a subject of ongoing debate and research.

<i>Sinornithosaurus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Sinornithosaurus is a genus of feathered dromaeosaurid dinosaur from the early Cretaceous Period of the Yixian Formation in what is now China. It was the fifth non–avian feathered dinosaur genus discovered by 1999. The original specimen was collected from the Sihetun locality of western Liaoning. It was found in the Jianshangou beds of the Yixian Formation, dated to 124.5 million years ago. Additional specimens have been found in the younger Dawangzhangzi bed, dating to around 122 million years ago.

Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anurognathidae</span> Family of pterosaurs from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods

Anurognathidae is a family of small, short-tailed pterosaurs that lived in Europe, Asia, and possibly North America during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Five genera are known: Anurognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Germany; Jeholopterus, from the Middle to Late Jurassic of China; Dendrorhynchoides, from the Middle Jurassic of China; Batrachognathus, from the Late Jurassic of Kazakhstan; and Vesperopterylus, from the Early Cretaceous of China. Bennett (2007) suggested that the holotype of Mesadactylus, BYU 2024, a synsacrum, belonged to an anurognathid, though this affinity has been questioned by other authors. Mesadactylus is from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of the United States. Indeterminate anurognathid remains have also been reported from the Middle Jurassic Bakhar Svita of Mongolia and the Early Cretaceous of North Korea.

Pohlsepia mazonensis is a species of fossil organism with unknown affinity. Although it was originally identified as an extinct cephalopod, later studies denied that interpretation. The species is known from a single exceptionally preserved fossil discovered in the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) Francis Creek Shale of the Carbondale Formation, north-east Illinois, United States.

The Burgess Shale of British Columbia is famous for its exceptional preservation of mid-Cambrian organisms. Around 69 other sites have been discovered of a similar age, with soft tissues preserved in a similar, though not identical, fashion. Additional sites with a similar form of preservation are known from the Ediacaran and Ordovician periods.

Conchodus is an extinct genus of marine lungfish which lived during the Devonian period.

<i>Pelophylax pueyoi</i> Extinct species of amphibian

Pelophylax pueyoi is an extinct species of large frog from Late Miocene of Spain. Initially classified as a member of the "green frog" complex within the genus Rana, it has since been reclassified into the genus Pelophylax as that genus has been split from Rana.

<i>Inkayacu</i> Extinct species of red-bellied penguin

Inkayacu is a genus of extinct penguins. It lived in what is now Peru during the Late Eocene, around 36 million years ago. A nearly complete skeleton was discovered in 2008 and includes fossilized feathers, the first known in penguins. A study of the melanosomes, pigment-containing organelles within the feathers, indicated that they were gray or reddish brown. This differs from modern penguins, which get their dark black-brown feathers from unique melanosomes that are large and ellipsoidal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dinosaur coloration</span> Studies of coloration in dinosaurs

Dinosaur coloration is generally one of the unknowns in the field of paleontology, as skin pigmentation is nearly always lost during the fossilization process. However, recent studies of feathered dinosaurs and skin impressions have shown the colour of some species can be inferred through the use of melanosomes, the colour-determining pigments within the feathers.

<i>Sciurumimus</i> Extinct species of reptile

Sciurumimus is an extinct genus of tetanuran theropod from the Late Jurassic Torleite Formation of Germany. It is known from a single juvenile specimen representing the type species, Sciurumimus albersdoerferi, which was found in a limestone quarry close to Painten in Lower Bavaria. The specimen was preserved with traces of feather-like filaments.

<i>Kulindadromeus</i> Extinct genus of dinosaurs

Kulindadromeus was a herbivorous dinosaur, a basal neornithischian from the Middle Jurassic. The first Kulindadromeus fossil was found in Russia. Its feather-like integument is evidence for protofeathers being basal to Ornithischia and possibly Dinosauria as a whole, rather than just to Coelurosauria, as previously suspected.

Cascocauda is an extinct genus of anurognathid pterosaur from the Late–⁠Middle Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of Hebei Province, China. The genus contains a single species, C. rong, known from a complete skeleton belonging to a juvenile individual preserved with extensive soft-tissues, including wing membranes and a dense covering of pycnofibres. Some of these pycnofibres appear to be branched, resembling the feathers of maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs, and suggesting that pterosaur pycnofibres may be closely related to feathers in dinosaurs.

References

  1. "My Weekend: My job can be really busy so I appreciate the countryside". echolive.ie. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "Medal and Award Winners List". The Palaeontological Association. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Prof. Maria McNamara". ucc.ie. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  4. "Dr Maria McNamara". icrag-centre.org. Retrieved 19 January 2023.
  5. 1 2 "Maria McNamara". ocrid.org. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  6. "Women on Walls". Blaise Smith. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
  7. "Women on Walls". ria.ie. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  8. "Annual Meeting 2022 - Cork, Ireland: Overview". palass.org. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  9. "Ireland's Fossil Heritage". ucc.ie. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  10. "NEW! Maria features in the new RTE documentary "The Island"". ucc.ie. Retrieved 21 January 2023.
  11. "Maria awarded €300K from Science Foundation Ireland!". University College Cork. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
  12. "UCC scholarship recognised as three academics elected to Royal Irish Academy". University College Cork. Retrieved 29 May 2024.