Robin Whatley
Associate Dean of Academic Operations and Programming
Associate Professor
rwhatley@colum.eduBiography
Dr. Robin Whatley is Associate Dean of Academic Operations and Programming, Director of the Honors Program, and Associate Professor in the School of Design. As associate dean, Dr. Whatley coordinates all aspects of the College's curriculum and manages the administration, scheduling and faculty for the First-semester Experience Program (AKA, "Big Chicago"). Dr. Whatley's research centers on the early evolution and diversification of terrestrial animal groups, including turtles, lizards, mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other vertebrates that originated in the Middle to Late Triassic Period (230 – 200 million years ago). She has an active field research program in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona (where she also takes Columbia students to learn about fossils and paleontology field methods). The most recent research is described in the multi-authored manuscript, "Unusual bonebed reveals a vertebrate community with pterosaurs and turtles in equatorial Pangaea before the end-Triassic extinction," currently under review for publication by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Whatley also has a background in the fine arts with a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute. She worked as an exhibit preparator and designer at The Field Museum, where her interest in natural history and evolution led her to pursue a PhD in vertebrate paleontology and remote sensing at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Robin holds Research Associate positions at The Field Museum in Chicago and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (the latter where she was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on the diversification of the earliest mammals), and has conducted museum and field research in places as far-flung as Argentina, Zambia, and Madagascar.
Instructional Areas
First-semester Experience; Vertebrate Paleontology Honors; Mammal Evolution; Dinosaur Evolution and Extinction; Physical Geology; Historical Geology; Natural Disasters; Paleontology Field Observation and Methods.
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Evolution, diversification, and paleoecology of small vertebrates living on land in the early Mesozoic Era (~200 million years ago); teaching and learning in museums and natural environments; using art to promote science literacy, especially about the history of life.
Degrees
B.F.A., Sculpture Kansas City Art Institute 1988
Ph.D., Geological Sciences University of California Santa Barbara 2005