Meet the Research Team!
Dr. Steve Emslie (website)
Dr. Steve Emslie is a professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). His research interests are interdisciplinary and focus on avian ecology and paleoecology, especially on the fossil record of birds in the Plio/Pleistocene and the evolution and extinction of birds in relation to climate change. For the past 30 years he has been studying the paleoecology of penguins in Antarctica with excavations of abandoned penguin colonies to recover bones and prey remains. These remains are providing information on the occupation history and diet of penguins that can be correlated with past population movements and episodes of climate change in this region. This research was then expanded to investigate carbon and oxygen isotope records preserved in penguin eggshell from fossil and recent penguin colonies.
Dr. Emslie received his B.A. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Colorado. He later received his M.S. in Biology from Northern Arizona University. Then he received his Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Florida. Dr. Emslie often visits Colorado and the western U.S., but he currrently resides in Wilmington, NC.