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 Dr. Mark Westneat, Curator of Zoology (Fishes) at The Field Museum of Natural History, is the first Director of the new Biodiversity Synthesis Center. He has been at The Field Museum of Natural History for 15 years, and has served as the head of the Fish Division for 10 years. During his time at the museum, Dr. Westneat has been heavily involved in research and has authored over 70 scientific publications on marine and freshwater fishes, biomechanics of several animal groups, and evolution. In particular his research has focused on understanding the biodiversity, function and history of life on coral reefs.
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 Dr. Richard Ree, Associate Curator in the Department of Botany at The Field Museum of Natural History, is the Assistant Director of the Biodiversity Synthesis Center. Rick's research focuses on plant systematics and evolution, emphasizing phylogenetics and biogeography. He has an active field program in the mountains of south-central China, and uses DNA sequences and other kinds of data to study the diversification of species there. He also enjoys thinking about and writing software for phylogenetic inference.
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 Alta Buden is a Biodiversity Specialist at the Field Museum. She recently completed her bachelor's degree at The University of Chicago, double majoring in HIPSS (History and Philosophy of Social Science and Medicine) and Visual Arts. She has been working part time as a research assistant and scientific illustrator at the Field Museum for almost two years, concentrating on the jaw mechanics and evolution of tetraodontiform fishes.
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 Dr. Audrey Aronowsky serves as Scientific Program Manager for the Biodiversity Synthesis Center. She comes to The Field Museum after three years as a research scientist at Louisiana State University where she studied the evolution and systematics of corbulid bivalves. Audrey received her doctorate in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003 for her research on the systematics and feeding ecology of naticid gastropods. Audrey is active in many scientific societies and has organized and chaired sessions in invertebrate zoology, paleontology, and marine ecology; she looks forward to coordinating many more synthesis meetings at the Center.
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 Dr. Torsten Dikow is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Field Museum of Natural History. His expertise is the taxonomy, phylogeny, and biodiversity of Asiloidea flies (Insecta: Diptera) and his research has focused in particular on assassin- or robber flies (Asilidae) - one of the largest groups of true flies. He joined the Biodiversity Synthesis Center after completing his Ph.D. in entomology at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History followed by a short postdoc at the same museum. He is originally from Germany and has traveled the world to study and collect flies in habitats ranging from hot deserts to temperate forests and subtropical grasslands to tropical rain-forests. His phylogenetic research is based on morphological examinations as well as on molecular characters which he combines to obtain the most informative phylogenetic hypotheses. He has discovered and named many new species of robber fly both through field collecting and in museum collections.
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 Darolyn Striley is an Administrative Assistant with the Biodiversity Synthesis Center. Darolyn arrived from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, where she worked as a Curatorial Assistant for five years at the Marine Biodiversity Processing Center. She has traveled to Fiji to work on an Artificial Reef Matrix System project, to Palau for an Isopoda project and to Montana to dig up some Tyrannosaurus Rex bones. Darolyn received her bachelor's in Women's Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her love of studying crustaceans is only surpassed by her love for eating them.
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Employment opportunities
Postdoctoral Researchers/ Visiting Scientists. Multiple opportunities are available for postdoctoral scholars or bioinformatics experts at other career levels to join the Biodiversity Synthesis Center. Candidates should have a strong background in biodiversity science, in the areas of phylogenetics, biogeography, computer science, bioinformatics, taxonomy of megadiverse and understudied species groups and/or conservation biology. Positions require participation in Encyclopedia of Life and Synthesis Center programs, with particular emphasis on building working groups and promoting synthesis of ideas. In addition, the analysis of biodiversity data sets as flagship examples of the use of phylogenetics and bioinformatics in the context of the EOL is encouraged. Applications may be submitted at any time. Contact us at biosync@fieldmuseum.org for more information.
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