Whitney V. Ribeiro
Whitney V. Ribeiro
Assistant to the Director and Volunteer Coordinator
they/them/theirs
Education
B.A. in Geology-Biology, Brown University
Overview
Whitney recently graduated from Brown University with a B.A in Geology-Biology. They explored different research topics during their undergraduate, working in Erynn Johnson’s (Yale), Dan Ibarra’s (Brown) and Elizabeth Sibert’s (WHOI) labs. They are broadly interested in the use of collections to address morphological questions in paleontology, particularly across periods of major perturbations, as well as the role of museums in geoscience education and diversity. Whit will be continuing research with Dr. Sibert using shark dermal denticles while assisting the Director at PRI, and they look forward to developing their skills as a paleontologist.
Research
Whit’s current research is focused on open ocean sharks’ response to the K/Pg mass extinction, using dermal denticles from a variety of ocean drilling cores. Dermal denticles are calcium-phosphate scales that have distinct morphologies, and which can be described in a coding system and compared across genera. Whitney is part of a denticle team working on applying this system to study global patterns of shark diversity and relative abundances from modern day to the K/Pg.