William J. Matthaeus

William J. Matthaeus is a Research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, working on the ERC-funded TERRAFORM project. His research focuses on advancing mechanistic models of ecosystems, evolution, and plant-climate interactions using fossil-derived traits. He holds a PhD in Biology (2021) from Baylor University, an MSc in Population Genetics, and a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Delaware.

Research Interests:

• Ecosystem dynamics and evolutionary processes in mathematical models
• Plant functional traits and their role in geologic-scale climate-vegetation feedbacks
• Integration of numerical methods and machine learning in ecological analysis

Professional Context: Currently contributes to the TERRAFORM project's efforts to improve Earth system models through paleontological data synthesis. His interdisciplinary work bridges botany, computational science, and evolutionary biology.