'Miquel Crusafont' Predoctoral Researcher

Paleobiodiversity & Phylogeny Research Group

(Madrid, 1998)

I am 'Miquel Crusafont' predoctoral researcher at the Paleobiodiversity and Phylogeny Research Group of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont. I studied the degree (BSc) in Geology (2020) at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Master (MSc) in Advanced Paleontology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, where I did my Master’s thesis entitled “Systematic and evolutionary study of the feline Styriofelis turnauensis from Príncipe Pío-2 (middle Miocene, Madrid)”.

Currently, I am starting my PhD at the ICP and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona under the supervision of Dr. Marta Pina, Dr. Júlia Arias-Martorell and Dr. Àngel H. Luján, funded by the 'Miquel Crusafont' Predoctoral Research Contract [ICPJA017] of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont. The main objective of my thesis is the taxonomic and paleobiological study of unpublished fossils of the Miocene fossil site of Creu de Conill 20 (Terrassa, Barcelona), with emphasis on the bovids and hyaenids. As a whole, my PhD thesis will expand the knowledge of the phylogenetic relationships of the fossil site fauna and the paleoenvironmental conditions of CCN20, in addition to contributing to the understanding of the faunal turnover that occurred during the Aragonian – Vallesian transition in the Vallès-Penedès Basin and in Western Europe.

During my short scientific career, I have collaborated with several articles which have been published in SCI journals (Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh), and I have presented papers at specialized national and international conferences (European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists, Palaeontological Virtual Congress, EJIP, IMERP, Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association).

I am interested in scientific outreach and I am compromised with the knowledge dissemination of paleontology and geology to all kind of public, as in talks, seminars and different activities at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, or Universidad EAFIT (Medellín, Colombia). I have participated as speaker during several editions of the Science and Innovation Week with the teaching innovation project Geodivulgar: Geología y Sociedad, to which I have participated since 2016.

Since I started my career, I have participated in paleontological excavation campaigns. Some of them are Batallones and Somosaguas (Madrid, Spain), els Casots and Creu de Conill 20 (Barcelona, Spain), Algora (Guadalajara, Spain), Baza-1 (Granada, Spain), Puente Minero and La Gloria-4 (Teruel, Spain) and El Rincón-1 (Albacete, Spain). Also, I have worked in emergency excavations as paleontologist technician in Velilla de San Antonio (Madrid, Spain) and Masia de Can Vila (Barcelona, Spain), and as paleontological collection technician at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid, Spain).

As scientific illustrator, I have worked with different museums and institutions, both national and international, as, for example, for the Museo Arqueológico Nacional abd Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid, Spain), Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (Burgos, Spain), Institut Català de Paleontologia (Barcelona, Spain),’Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (Tarragona, Spain), Universidad de Granada (Granada, Spain) or Musée National de Préhistoire et d’Ethnographie du Bardo (Alger, Algeria). Also, my illustrations have received different awards (I Paleoilustration Contest del Palaeontological Virtual Congress, VI Paleo-Illustration Contest of EJIP).

Researchgate Profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jesus-Gamarra

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9474-2317

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