About
Affiliation
Museum of Zoology
I manage the day to day functions and operations of the UMMZ's micro-CT lab. This includes operating a Nikon XT-225ST micro-CT scanner, conducting data recontruction, management, and 3D data visualization. I also can provide research support by: aiding in student projects by teaching them how to work with CT data; working with research faculty on grants by providing visualizations, figures, and text; helping to draft manuscripts; and working to provide protocols about CT best practices in a museum context.
I am passionate about museum collections, and collections based research. My overarching goal is to ensure that the specimens we scan are both useful digitally and physically for future generations of researchers. This is accomplished by ensure that no harm/damage is done to specimens while being scanned, and by ensure that the CT data generated are archived and accessible for future projects.
My position is partially funding by the NSF TCN project: oVert. More information can be found here: https://www.idigbio.org/wiki/index.php/OVert:_Open_Exploration_of_Vertebrate_Diversity_in_3D
Fields of study
Zoology, morphology, palaeontology and herpetology
Publications
Nagesan, R.S., Campbell, J.A., Pardo, J.D., Lennie, K.I., Vavrek, M.J., & Anderson, J.S. (2019). An Early Cretaceous (Berriasian) fossil-bearing locality from the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, yielding the oldest dinosaur skeletal remains from western Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. [Just-in Article, December 19th 2019]. 10.1139/cjes-2019-0166
Nagesan, R.S., Henderson, D.M., & Anderson J.S. (2018). A method for deducing neck mobility in plesiosaurs, using the exceptionally preserved Nichollssaura borealis. Royal Society Open Sciences, 5(8). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172307