Welcome to the Rayfield L
ab webpage at the School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. We are an interdisciplinary team of palaentologists, organismal biologists, biomechanists and geologists who study the function and evolution of living and extinct animals. We use imaging methods such as X-ray CT scanning to digitise skeletons of fossils and living animals and employ biomechanical analysis, including the engineering technique finite element analysis (FEA), to deduce how these skeletons function.
From this we can infer and estimate the function of living and extinct animals and explore the mechanical controls on form during development and evolution.
Please get in contact if you’re interested in joining the lab. You can find my contact details here.