Sam Giles

Sam Giles is a palaeobiologist at the University of Birmingham.[1][3][4] Her research combines modern imaging with fossils to understand the evolution of life and in 2015 "rewrote" the vertebrate family tree. She was a 2017 L'Oréal-UNESCO Rising Star and won the 2019 Geological Society of London Lyell Fund.

Sam Giles
Alma materUniversity of Bristol (BSc)
University of Oxford (DPhil)
AwardsL'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards (2017)
Scientific career
FieldsActinopterygii
Acanthodii
Placodermi
Virtual Palaeontology[1]
InstitutionsUniversity of Oxford
ThesisHow to build a bony vertebrate in evolutionary time (2015)
Doctoral advisorMatt Friedman[2]

Early life and education

Giles studied geology at the University of Bristol, graduating in 2011.[5] Giles completed her doctor of philosophy at the University of Oxford in 2015,[2] where she was a member of St Hugh's College.[6] She worked with Matt Friedman on early ray-finned fishes.[7]

Career and research

In 2015, Giles was appointed a junior research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford. Giles was awarded a L'Oréal-UNESCO fellowship in 2016, which would allow her to study the anatomy of vertebrate's brains.[8][9] In 2017, Giles was awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship to study the evolution of the actinopterygii.[10][11] In 2018, she joined the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham as a member of academic staff.

Giles uses x-ray tomography to study the bone structure of Actinopterygii.[6] Whilst the long-held assumption was that sharks were primitive forms of fish, Giles found that our latest common ancestors are not like sharks, but common bony and cartilaginous.[12][13][14][15] Giles identified a new genus of Actinopterygii, which provided a new model of cranial anatomy.[16] She used synchrotron-CT scans to examine the endoskeletal anatomy of Cheirolepis.[17]

The ray-finned fishes comprise half of extinct vertebrate species.[18] She compares the brains of ancient and modern fish, which helps to understand the evolution of the brain.[6] Giles identified that ray-finned fish originated during the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary.[6][19] By comparing scanilepiform fossils and Bichir, Giles found that ray-finned fishes were 40 million years younger than previously expected, "shaking up" and "rewriting" the evolutionary tree.[20][21][22] She also studied Meemannia, finding lateral carnial and spiracular canals.[23] She also works on Placodermi and Gnathostomata.[24]

She has written for the HuffPost and given several popular science lectures.[25][26] In 2019 Giles was awarded the Geological Society of London Lyell Fund, which is awarded to researchers on the basis of outstanding published research.[27][28]

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References
  1. Sam Giles publications indexed by Google Scholar
  2. Giles, Sam (2015). How to build a bony vertebrate in evolutionary time. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. OCLC 946068637. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.711849.
  3. Sam Giles on Twitter
  4. Sam Giles publications from Europe PubMed Central
  5. "Dr Sam Giles | Christ Church, Oxford University". chch.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  6. "Dr Sam Giles wins L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science Fellowship | St Hugh's College, Oxford". St Hugh's College, Oxford. 2016-11-02. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  7. Giles, Sam; Friedman, Matt (2014). "Virtual reconstruction of endocast anatomy in early ray-finned fishes (Osteichthyes, Actinopterygii)". Journal of Paleontology. 88 (4): 636–651. doi:10.1666/13-094. ISSN 0022-3360.
  8. "Dr Sam Giles Awarded 2017 L'Oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Fellowship | Christ Church, Oxford University". chch.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  9. "Two Oxford scientists selected for 'Women in Science' Fellowships | University of Oxford". ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  10. "Sam Giles". royalsociety.org. London: Royal Society. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  11. "Royal Society announces Dorothy Hodgkin Fellows for 2017 | Royal Society". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  12. "Ancient 420-million-year-old fossil hints of bony fish and cartilaginous fish common ancestor". ZME Science. 2015-01-13. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  13. "Two-faced fish clue that our ancestors 'weren't shark-like'". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  14. "Fossil fish reveals sharks lost bony armour early in their evolution | Imperial News | Imperial College London". Imperial News. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  15. Giles, Sam; Friedman, Matt; Brazeau, Martin D. (2015). "Osteichthyan-like cranial conditions in an Early Devonian stem gnathostome". Nature. 520 (7545): 82–85. doi:10.1038/nature14065. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 5536226. PMID 25581798.
  16. Giles, Sam; Darras, Laurent; Clément, Gaël; Blieck, Alain; Friedman, Matt (2015). "An exceptionally preserved Late Devonian actinopterygian provides a new model for primitive cranial anatomy in ray-finned fishes". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 282 (1816): 20151485. doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.1485. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 4614771. PMID 26423841.
  17. Giles, Sam; Coates, Michael I.; Garwood, Russell J.; Brazeau, Martin D.; Atwood, Robert; Johanson, Zerina; Friedman, Matt (2015). "Endoskeletal structure inCheirolepis(Osteichthyes, Actinopterygii), An early ray-finned fish". Palaeontology. 58 (5): 849–870. doi:10.1111/pala.12182. ISSN 0031-0239. PMC 4950109. PMID 27478252.
  18. Giles, Sam; Xu, Guang-Hui; Near, Thomas J.; Friedman, Matt (2017). "Early members of 'living fossil' lineage imply later origin of modern ray-finned fishes" (PDF). Nature. 549 (7671): 265–268. doi:10.1038/nature23654. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 28854173.
  19. Clement, Alice M; King, Benedict; Giles, Sam; Choo, Brian; Ahlberg, Per E; Young, Gavin C; Long, John A (2018). "Neurocranial anatomy of an enigmatic Early Devonian fish sheds light on early osteichthyan evolution". eLife. 7. doi:10.7554/eLife.34349. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 5973833. PMID 29807569.
  20. "Ancient fish skulls shake up the vertebrate evolutionary tree". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  21. "Ancient fossil may rewrite fish family tree". Science | AAAS. 2015-01-12. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  22. "Shaking up the fish family tree: 'Living fossil' not as old as we thought". University of Michigan News. 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  23. Lu, Jing; Giles, Sam; Friedman, Matt; den Blaauwen, Jan L.; Zhu, Min (2016). "The Oldest Actinopterygian Highlights the Cryptic Early History of the Hyperdiverse Ray-Finned Fishes". Current Biology. 26 (12): 1602–1608. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2016.04.045. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 27212403.
  24. "TW:eed Project - Associate/Volunteers". tetrapods.org. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  25. "Dr Sam Giles". HuffPost UK. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  26. "Fossil Fish". birmingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-29.
  27. "The Geological Society of London - Geological Society Awards 2019". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
  28. "The Geological Society of London - The Wollaston, Lyell, Murchison and William Smith Funds". www.geolsoc.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-03-04.
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