Biography
I was raised in New York City and the north woods of Canada. At Swarthmore College I earned degrees in mathematics and engineering, but was not interested in pursuing either as a career. In Australia while teaching SCUBA I met my first professional biologists. I returned home to get a masters degree in Biology at New York University and the University of Massachusetts for a Ph.D. From the beginning of my research career I have attempted to capitalize on my previous training as an engineer to understand the evolution of the mechanical systems of animals.
At the University of California Berkeley I was a Miller Research Fellow working in Marvalee Wake’s lab on the jaws of a particularly unusual group of limbless amphibians called caecilians, and in David Wake’s lab on the mechanics of salamander walking. During my time at UC Berkeley I was approached by Pixar Studios to help them with the movie Finding Nemo. I spent three years advising on animal movements and biological aspects of the film and was delighted when the hard work of the Pixar folks was so well received at the box office.
In 2001 I founded the Biomechanics Laboratory at the University of California Irvine . While there I won the Bartholomew Prize for physiology research from the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology and the UCI Academic Senate prize for undergraduate teaching.
UW FRIDAY HARBOR LABS
In 2009 I moved my laboratory north to the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Laboratories and assumed the role of Associate Director. The unique biodiversity of the San Juan Islands allows my students and I to continue exploring biomechanics, biomaterials, and evolutionary questions in a wide variety of organisms. I have transitioned away from administration and now do my research and teaching at the labs and on main campus without any administrative duties. I teach an intensive graduate course in the biomechanics of fishes at FHL every other summer.
Continuing research
With students and collaborators I have published more than 175 articles in scientific journals on subjects including the heads of hammerhead sharks, the properties of skeletons, and difficulties of eating hard prey. For many years I shared my enthusiasm for the field of biomechanics with a monthly column that appears in Natural History Magazine. The 60th column was published in 2008. I write the occasional News and Views article for Nature, and take every opportunity possible to broaden the appeal and understanding of comparative biomechanics. Recently, with help from poets and artists I have enjoyed bridging the gap between art and science through the visual arts. I have a traveling exhibit called "Cleared" and am working on a series of images using a CT scanner to visualize fishes.