Leigh Anne Riedman

I am from northern Louisiana and attended Louisiana Tech University, majoring in Geology. I received my master's degree in Geology with an emphasis in Paleontology from UCLA and my PhD from UCSB where I studied various aspects of Neoproterozoic paleontology, working with Susannah Porter. My research in Precambrian paleontology has continued and expanded to include the whole of the Proterozoic. In particular my research involves systematic paleontology and development of large datasets that I use to ask big-picture questions about eukaryotic diversity through time, searching for taphonomically- and human-induced biases that affect this record. I am particularly fascinated by the origin and evolution of the eukaryotic cell and the origin of biomineralization, and how these and other major transitions in life affected and were effected by our evolving Earth.