Interview with Paleontologist: Melanie During

Melanie During is a vertebrate paleontologist, currently employed as a research
assistant at Uppsala University in Sweden. She is Dutch and recently moved to Sweden
to begin her new job, while she continues to search for a fitting PhD program. Melanie
has a BS in Earth Sciences from the University of Amsterdam and a MS in
paleoclimatology from the VU (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam. A life-long fascination with
extinct fauna and evolution drove her to independently familiarize herself with vertebrate
morphology and comparative anatomy through elective courses (i.e. at Utrecht
University). During her bachelor and master education, she performed research on the
geochemistry, trackways, and vertebrate body fossils of Dutch early Middle Triassic
records exposed in the Winterswijkse Steengroeve quarry complex. This quarry, it’s
fossils and the citizen scientists who have been collecting there for more than 50 years
drew her to become increasingly involved in the excavations and research. Since 2015,
she acts as board member of the Workgroup Muschelkalk Winterswijk that seeks to
connect professional paleontologists with enthusiastic citizen scientists. This quarry also
led her to meet her life-partner, with whom she returns to the quarry every year to help
assist in the annual student excavations. For her master’s thesis, she studied fish and
dinosaur fossils from the unique Tanis locality (North Dakota, US). Here, latest
Cretaceous fossiliferous seiche deposits directly associated with the K-Pg boundary
event are preserved in exquisite detail. For this project she was able to do an
experiment at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France, where X-
ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) and virtual segmentation was used to study
fossils without preparing them from the rock. This work, which is currently being
prepared for publication, was awarded the Dutch Escher Prize for the most outstanding
master thesis in Earth Sciences. Melanie studies tetrapod evolution broadly, but is
specifically interested in adaptations and extinctions. Specifically, the rise of the marine
reptiles prior to that of the dinosaurs during the Triassic, and the extinction of the
dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous, and how the selectivity of the K-Pg extinction
could be explained. She is still at the beginning of her career and is currently looking for
a vertebrate paleontological PhD program in Europe.

Pretending to be Mother Mary with a ¼ scale model of a T-rex skull.

Photograph by Juliën Kavish Lubeek.

Question 1: What was your first sign of interest in paleontology that you can
remember?

MD: As a young girl I was always playing outside and collecting rocks, spiders, bugs and
other things from nature. One day when I was around 7 years old, the municipality in
which I lived decided to replace the shells on the paths in the local park that I crossed to
get to school. As I walked to school the next day, I arrived hours late with pockets full of
shells, which I collected by carefully walking next to the path. As I was curious to some
of the shapes that I had never seen before, I went to the library and started comparing
the pictures to the shells I had found. When I finally found the comparison to some of
the shells, these turned out to be fossils, some of which even index fossils, for the
Miocene or the Eocene- and a fascination was born.

Question2: Did you have any family members or other people in your life who
served as role models when you were younger? 

MD: No, as a young girl I mostly played outside alone because no one in my family
understood my tendency to bring home dead things or rocks.

Question 3: Do you have any now?

MD: Oh, I have many by now. From citizen scientists, such as my ´surrogate mother´ Tineke
Lammerse to professionals such as Dr. John de Vos or to commercial paleontologists
as Pete Larson. They have all shown eager to teach me, take me out into collections or
into the field and discuss the fossils.

Excavating a piece of Triceratops parietal near Newcastle Wyoming in 2015.

Photograph by Pete Larson.

MD: Hmm, it would be hard to identify specific things or actions. If I would want to explainQuestion4: What specific things or actions do you feel most helped you get to the
point in your career where you are now?

how I got my Masters, from a low socio-economic background and three foster homes, I
think it is due to my stubborn perseverance.
My current position is that of a research assistant at Uppsala University in Sweden,
while I am also frequently hired to lecture to middle school, high school- and undergrad
students. All of these activities stem from my tendency to want to share my passion and
grasping onto every form of outreach that I could find.

Question 5: It seems that much of your work is with Triassic fossils.  Was this
something you specifically wanted to work with and sought out?  Or did it choose
you?

MD: In a way it chose me, since I am from the Netherlands, which has relatively few in-situ
fossils. The first time I visited the Winterswijk Limestone Quarry was in 2014, and for my
bachelor thesis I studied a section of 270 footprints from Rhynchosauroides peabodyi,
which are extremely plentiful in this quarry. The Triassic period is such a phenomenally
strange time; just after the largest known mass extinction and just before the dominance
of the dinosaurs-it is a period of rapid evolutionary radiation enabled by the great
number of empty niches.
Directly after handing in my bachelor thesis, the annual Winterswijk student excavation
commenced and I was in! Subsequently I wrote my first ever publication on a strange
vertebra from a durophagous placodont, I studied the bulk geochemistry of the entire
stratigraphy (to be published later this year) and I joined the citizen scientists working
group (Werkgroep Muschelkalk Winterswijk) in order to enhance collaboration between
collectors and researchers. Although I have also worked on the K-Pg extinction for my
master thesis and am currently working on late Devonian material, the early middle
Triassic marine reptiles of the Germanic Basin will always be among my favorite study
material and I look forward to working on them in the future.

Lifting a slab of fossiliferous Muschelkalk together with Dr. Dennis Voeten in

2019. These big slabs were subsequently passed on to students who would use their

hamers and chisels to make them smaller and look for fossils. Photograph by Prof.

Anne Schulp.

Question 6: What has been your favorite project so far?

MD: Beyond a doubt that would be my master thesis, which is still unpublished, so I cannot
say too much about it. However, I can mention that I worked on the material from Tanis
(North Dakota), where the last day of the Cretaceous was preserved in phenomenal
good condition. The material contained so many ´firsts´ for me, including: first time I
studied fossils that were buried as they died, first time I found soft tissues, first time I got
to use synchrotron μCT analysis and 3D modelling techniques, and the first time I
managed to directly answer the research question I initially asked prior to any analyses.
In other words, a little patience and I’ll happily share it with the world once the paper is
out.

Question 7: What are you working on right now?

MD: I am currently employed in the lab of Per Ahlberg at Uppsala University in Sweden,
where I model synchrotron microCT data of Late Devonian coprolites, which aid in the
PhD project of Hannah Byrne. Hannah is currently studying the biotic transition at the
Devonian-Carboniferous boundary, and coprolites are very informative if you want to
figure out who ate whom. For those unaware, coprolites are fossilized excrement, or
poop. It´s a shitty job, but somebody´s gotta do it –pun intended ;).
This research assistant position is a perfect bridge between my masters and my future
PhD, I am further developing useful skills and working in a great team where I will
expand my network. I admit I am somewhat picky when it comes to PhD positions and
the ones I want are heavily competed for, therefore hopefully this job will increase my
chances and I am definitely not bored or unhappy in the meantime

“Preparation day” 2017, a day for the Workgroup Muschelkalk Winterswijk in

which citizen scientists and professionals share their findings and discuss preparation

methods. Photograph by Jos Lankamp.

Question 8: I know you have a pretty great twitter account.  How do you think
social media plays into your profession? 

MD: Wow, thank you! In all honesty I have only recently passed the 1000 followers mark, but
it went relatively fast from there. My social media is an enormous outreach outlet to me,
trying to offer motivation and encouragement to current students, offering evocative
information to potential future paleontologists and sharing some inside information with
my international colleagues. It has offered me a direct link to journalists and
paleontologists whom I would otherwise have never met. The majority of my invited
lectures actually come from sharing my field-experiences directly on twitter and this has
a direct effect on my lecturing experience. One day I hope to create paleontological
documentaries and I am 100% sure that having an extensive online network will help
with that.

Excavating Triceratops material (at least a Femur and Tibia are clearly in

view) for Naturalis in the summer of 2015. Photograph by Prof. Anne Schulp.

Question 9: Where has paleontology taken you geographically?  What is your
favorite place you have spent time in so far?

MD: Oh wow, well I’d have to separate a few things then. So, paleontology has taken me
places for study and work, it has taken me places for conferences, it allowed me to
meet my partner Dr. Dennis Voeten who I visited in many places, and it has taken me
places for fieldwork.

I have done the majority of my education in the Netherlands, in Utrecht and in
Amsterdam, with an internship at the Black Hills Institute for Geological Research in
South Dakota, US. Currently I am employed in Uppsala, Sweden. I have attended
conferences in Grand Rapids, MI, US; Berlin, Germany; Opole, Poland; Lyon, France;
Munich, Germany; Brussels, Belgium (and several in the Netherlands). I have met
Dennis Voeten in Winterswijk, while he was doing his PhD in Olomouc, Czech Republic
and Grenoble, France, where I traveled to frequently, and I have done fieldwork in: the
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, Spain, UK, Scotland, Poland, US.

Question 10: Do you ever get criticized on any of your work?  How do you react to
it?

MD: Oof, yes, often enough. I find that criticism on my work is actually tremendously helpful.
Although I may not always agree with the criticism, I`m very welcoming to other points
of view and sometimes it shows me that I just did not explain my reasoning well enough
and there is something to gain.
Criticism on my work is actually not the only criticism I get, and I have had a great deal
of criticism directed at my work, which was actually criticism on my flamboyant
personality, my big mouth or my non-academic activities. That sort of criticism has
caused me a great deal of sadness several times and I have both learned to make sure
that I take all the necessary academic steps to prevent them, as well as the develop
broader shoulders and wave my pink hair prouder than I ever have before.

Question 11: Where there any forms of media or entertainment that you think
helped fuel your interest in paleontology?

MD: Hmm, well, my interest in paleontology is continuously fueled through (social) media
today and in the past 10 years. As a child however, I grew up without cable and with
expensive dial-up internet and I didn’t even see the Jurassic Park movies before
becoming an adult. The public library was all I had and it certainly fueled my interest.

Melanie “riding” a T-rex Stan replica during her internship at the Black Hills

institute for Geological Research. Photograph by Peter Larson.

Question 12: Some people say that paleontology doesn't do any real good for
humanity and is just a "for fun" field.  What are your thoughts on this view? 

MD: Honestly paleontology will likely never cure cancer or solve today’s great problems of
humanity. Calling it a “just for fun” field, however stems from looking directly at the
current world’s problems and then at what paleontology does to solve them, which is
cherry-picking.
Paleontology, like many of the STEM fields, focuses on the cores of long-term
problems. Bit by bit and step by step, as the centuries go by, we learn and understand
more about life on Earth. These are never-ending fields, and we will likely never answer
all the questions, since the answer of one question typically results in more new
questions. In the process, however, we have learned that the Earth is round, and it’s the
third planet in our Solar System, which is about 4.6 billion years old and has inhabited

life for about 3.8 billion years. Life has experienced at least 5 mass extinctions and over
99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. Diseases such as we humans suffer
today, are found back in fossil bones dating back to at least the Triassic (about 240
million years ago) and are therefore nothing new. Paleontology is the non-written history
of Earth´s life´s past, it has already happened, and studying this history provides us with
an insight in the future, a future that includes climate change and mass extinctions.

Dissecting a modern Ostrich for comparative osteological analysis, in 2016

in my backyard in Amsterdam North, photograph by Sander Liem.

Question 12: Who was the first paleontologist you met?  How did that go?

MD: The First paleontologist I ever met was Dr. John de Vos, at the time curator at Naturalis
Biodiversity Center (the National Natural history museum) in Leiden and Teylers
museum (oldest museum in the Netherlands) in Haarlem. He gave a guest lecture in the
elective course “Big History”, during the course I asked just a bit too many questions
and he quickly suggested I talked to him after the lecture. After the lecture I happily
came up to him and he gave me his card: “Send me an email and I’ll give you a tour
through the museums, you can be a paleontologist too, don´t let anyone tell you any
differently!” Needless to say, I followed his advice. After the two tours through the
museums he introduced me to several more Dutch paleontologists, including Prof. Jelle
Reumer who supervised my subsequent bachelor thesis.

Question 13: Why do you think prehistoric animals are so influential to humans?

MD: In a way they test your imagination. When I studied the footprints of Rhynchosauroides
peabodyi, I was studying at least 13 individual trackways, some overlapping and some
clearly deposited later than others. I could not help but imagine a soft of Persian Gulf,
where all these reptiles would wander over the tidal flats.
Paleontology takes you back to times when nature was still unaffected by humans, I’m
not saying it was much better then, because for instance Winterswijk was a hypersaline,
dry and hot environment during the early Middle Triassic. Yet imagining that on this
Earth, where you now walk and find a fossil, this animal actually walked around and
lived out its entire life under very different and yet very similar circumstances. What was
it? Under what circumstances did it live? How did it move? What did it eat? How did it
die? Are the most basic questions and every answer will lead to more questions. It just
tickles your brain a little. In my case it makes me extremely curious and it is that
curiosity that makes for such fanatic paleontologists.

Melanie together with Prof. Anne Schulp, drawing out swimming traces in the Winterswijkse Steengroeve in 2015.  Photograph by Remco Bleeker.

Question 14: What is your favorite prehistoric animal? Why?

MD: Oh dear, every time a child raises their hand after my lecture to ask me this question, I
fall completely silent. Honestly, this is one of the hardest questions there is and I´m
genuinely afraid I give a different answer every time I get it.
Therefore, today I will say it´s the Placodont, a shell-crushing marine reptile from the
early Middle Triassic, with big fat pachyostotic bones and elaborate palatal dentition (flat
and wide teeth all across the roof and bottom of its mouth).

However, tomorrow I may say Nothosaurus, or Triceratops, perhaps the day after I’ll say
Oviraptor or Titanosaurus. Although I’m mostly fond of Mesozoic reptiles, I’m not really
focused on which one is my favorite and as long as it has a spine, I’d be interested in
studying it.

Melanie during the fieldwork for her master thesis in ‘Tanis’ North Dakota

(US). Photograph by Jackson Leibach.

Question 15: If you could go back in time and observe any prehistoric time
period/community, what would it be?  Why?

MD: I would love to observe the K-Pg extinction, although I expect that to be a little painful to
witness. It ties in with all my interests, from Earth Sciences to astronomy to
paleontology and it has literally kept me up at night wondering how this catastrophe led
to such a discriminating mass extinction.

Question 16: Back to the time machine.  If you could bring back any animal from
earth's history back to modern time to observe alive, what would it be and why?

MD: The very first living organism.

Question 17: What is your favorite museum?  Why?

MD: Teylers Museum in Haarlem. It is the first and oldest museum in the Netherlands and to
this day largely maintains its original architecture, interior and collection. Teylers
Museum is the only museum in the Netherlands that has been open to the public
continuously since 1784. It is home of the “Haarlem specimen” of Archaeopteryx*,
which John Ostrom himself could borrow when he thought it was misidentified as a
pterosaur. The museum was also extremely welcoming to house the 14 th annual
meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Paleontology (EAVP), for which I
was in the organization committee. To this day, this is one of the most remarkable
experiences of my life, seeing 200 paleontologists make their way through 19 th century
cabinets full of fossils and other scientific curiosa to attend conference sessions.

*most recently it has been identified as Ostromia crassipes, but it would not surprise me
if this is not the last name it will ever have.

The group photo of the 14 th annual EAVP meeting at Teylers Museum in

Haarlem in 2016, Melanie is located in the bottom left (pink hair, green top).

Question 18: What are your hobbies?  (doesn't have to be paleontology-related)

MD: Hobbies? I don’t have time for hobbies?! -No I’m joking, I absolutely think hobbies are
vital for life.
Let’s see, other than paleontology, my time is spent on:
-Singing (in bands, on stage, or just at home while doing the dishes)
-Acting (in commercials or films)
-Painting, drawing and crafting in general.
-Sewing. I made a dinosaur dress for my thesis defense and try to make clothes every
now and then. My machine will finally come to Uppsala next week and I’m trying a fun
new project I named:” Everything can have pockets” where I attempt to give all my
clothes pockets.
-Repairing. Whether it’s a flat tire on my bike or my car needing new brake-pads, I like
figuring things out and getting my hands dirty.
-Going out to festivals, rock shows or parties. Fun is to be had!

Wyoming at night with the Milky way in 2015. photograph by Servaas Neijens.