I'm a graduate student in Adam Summers' lab at the University of California Irvine and am interested in form and function relationships in musculoskeletal systems. During development, the cartilage endoskeletons of many vertebrates are replaced by bone, implying that cartilage can't stand up to the biomechanical demands of the adult way of life. How then do the cartilaginous elasmobranchs (sharks, skates and rays) accomplish such a high level of performance? They are some of the fastest and largest animals in the ocean, and many can feed on prey larger than themselves or as hard as bone. One key to their success is the mineralization of their skeletal tissues; my current research investigates the development, phylogeny and functional significance of cartilage calcification in these fishes.

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