My primary research interest is the evolution of division of labor. From caste types in ant colonies to the specialized zooids of the Portuguese man o' war, division of labor is expressed across many groups of colonial animals. I use the fossil record of a particular group of colonial animals, called bryozoans, to understand the impacts of division of labor on speciation rate, extinction rate, and morphological evolution.
PhD, Geological Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder, 2024
BSc, Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 2018
Publications
Leventhal, S., Simpson, C., & Edie, S. M. (2023). Division of Labor Through Loss of Function in a Cheilostome Bryozoan. In Geological Society of America Abstracts (Vol. 55, p. 391185).
Leventhal, S., Stowe, K., & Simpson, C. (2023). Early proliferation of avicularia in the Cretaceous cheilostome bryozoan Wilbertopora: a diversification event guided by ecological exploration. In Bryozoan Studies 2022 (pp. 87-94). CRC Press.
Leventhal, S., Jamison-Todd, S., & Simpson, C. (2023). Aggregate trait evolvability and macroevolution in two sister species of the bryozoan Stylopoma. Evolutionary Biology, 50(1), 78-89.
