Selina R. Cole

Selina R. Cole is an Assistant Professor of Geosciences and Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma. She holds a position in the School of Geosciences at the Sarkeys Energy Center in Norman, Oklahoma.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in 2017 from The Ohio State University
• B.S. in 2012 from James Madison University
• A.A. in 2009 from Danville Community College

As an invertebrate paleontologist, Dr. Cole's research program primarily focuses on evolutionary paleoecology, emphasizing the role of ecology as an evolutionary driver in marine systems through deep time. Her work falls into two overlapping and complementary areas: extinction (including extinction risk, recovery, and evolutionary consequences of mass extinctions) and community paleoecology (including the assembly and phylogenetic structure of paleocommunities, changes in niche space occupation through time, and ecological restructuring following environmental perturbations). Although her research uses diverse groups of fossil marine invertebrates, her taxonomic expertise is on fossil crinoids (the feather stars and sea lilies, relatives of sea urchins and starfish), and she most frequently uses their exceptional fossil record for addressing evolutionary and paleoecological questions.

Dr. Cole's extensive publication record demonstrates expertise in crinoid systematics, morphology, and evolutionary history. Her research frequently integrates museum collection studies, phylogeny reconstruction, quantitative and phylogenetic comparative approaches, and fieldwork, notably on Anticosti Island in Quebec, Canada. She has made significant contributions to understanding hierarchical controls on extinction selectivity, phylogenetic community paleoecology, and the evolutionary history of diplobathrid crinoids. Her work spans paleontology, evolutionary biology, and ecology, with applications to understanding macroevolutionary patterns and processes over the last ~500 million years.

Dr. Cole has described numerous new crinoid taxa from various Ordovician formations around the world, including from Ontario, Estonia, and Spain. Her research on the Brechin Lagerstätte has revealed it as the most taxonomically diverse Katian crinoid fauna, with more than 20 crinoid genera represented, providing important insights into early crinoid community structure and evolution.

She teaches courses including Fundamentals of Invertebrate Paleontology and maintains an active research program with extensive publication output in high-impact journals such as Nature Ecology & Evolution, Science Advances, and Journal of Paleontology.