Dr Emily Rayfield

Research summary

My research focuses on how skeletal mechanics influences morphological evolution and the relationship between form and function in hard tissues - primarily, but not exclusively, the vertebrate skull.

My research uses the engineering technique finite element analysis (FEA) to deduce skeletal stress and strain during function. In particular I am interested in how FEA can inform on functional behaviour in individual taxa and elucidate functional ecology and morphological changes across evolutionary transitions such as the origin of birds and mammals.  Such studies are constrained by my research on FE-validation in birds, testing how accurately our FE-models approach reality.

My group takes ...

Read more >

Links

•   Lab webpage

Recent publications

• Panagiotopoulou, O, Wilshin, S, Rayfield, E, Shefelbine, S & Hutchinson, J 2012, ‘What makes an accurate and reliable subject-specific finite element model? A case study of an elephant femur’. Journal of the Royal Society Interface., pp. 351 - 361
• Anderson, P, Bright, J, Gill, P, Palmer, C & Rayfield, E 2012, ‘Models in palaeontological functional analysis’. Biology Letters, vol 8., pp. 119 - 122

Read more >

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system