The Austin Sierra Club has announced Dr. Christopher J. Bell of the University of Texas at Austin, as a guest speaker on March 8th. The event will be held at Scholz Garten on 1607 San Jacinto Street and begins at 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Bell is an award-winning professor in vertebrate paleontology at the Jackson School of Geosciences. His research and course teachings cover a wide range of geoscience topics, including vertebrate evolution, biodiversity, and biogeography—with an emphasis on the last two million years of earth history.
His current research includes, osteology, anatomy, and systematics of squamate reptiles (i.e., lizards, snakes, turtles, and amphisbaenian). Among some of the courses he’s taught at the University of Texas, are: Life through Time, The Age of Mammals, Natural History Museum Science, and Morphology of the Vertebrate Skeleton. For the latter course, Dr. Bell built a collection of fish head skeletons that he acquired from over the years.
Dr. Bell received a PhD in Invertebrate Biology from the University of Berkeley in 1997, and immediately joined the faculty at University of Texas at Austin. He also holds an MS in Quaternary Studies from Northern Arizona University and a BS in Geology from the College of William & Mary. Following his undergraduate studies, he worked at the San Bernardino County Museum in Southern California, where he studied lizards—watching their habits and examining their bones.