Daniel Thomas

In 2005 I graduated from the University of Otago with Double First Class Honours in Geology and Zoology. In 2009 I graduated with a PhD from the University of Otago with a thesis titled 'Evolution of the humeral plexus in penguins'. My doctoral supervisors were R. Ewan Fordyce and Russell D. Frew. I followed this with two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cape Town in South Africa where I analysed local fossils under the mentorship of Professor Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan. This was followed with two years as part of the inaugural intake of the Buck Fellowship program at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC, where I researched the origins of feather colour under the guidance of Dr Helen James. From there I took up a zoology lectureship at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand, and now I am an honorary academic with the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Auckland.