Lauren Sallan is a macroevolutionist whose work integrates fossils and living systems to understand how biodiversity reorganizes over deep time. As Head of the Macroevolution Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, she studies how biodiversity is reset and ecosystems are rebuilt after global environmental disruption. Her work reveals how evolutionary history, biological constraints, and chance interact to produce recurring solutions over hundreds of millions of years. By focusing on the assembly, collapse, and reassembly of ecosystems, Sallan’s research offers a unifying view of why major evolutionary patterns repeat — and why they sometimes do not.
Areas of Expertise
Biodiversity, Data, Education, Evolution, Fish, Fossils, Freshwater ecology, Marine biology, Mass extinction events, Museums, Oceans, Paleontology, Research, Science, Science communication, Species protection, Universities
