Tara Smiley Wins NSF CAREER Award to Unlock Small-Mammal Fossil Record
Tara Smiley, assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences Department of Ecology and Evolution, has received the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award for her project, “Unlocking the small-mammal fossil record to investigate eco-evolutionary responses to landscape and climate dynamics: a multi-proxy and cross-scale approach.”
Smiley’s proposal aims to develop novel multi-proxy trait data from the small-mammal fossil record to capture dietary ecology, habitat use, and ecological structure across a hierarchy of taxonomic, spatial, and temporal scales. Research will unfold across the fossil record of two continental systems — the Basin and Range Province of western North America and the East Africa Rift in Kenya — providing a comparative framework for evaluating the roles of global and regional climate change, the expansion of C4 grasslands, and tectonic regime on the eco-evolutionary history of small mammals during the Miocene, a period known for the assembly of modern biota.
By integrating multi-proxy data from fossil and geological records, Smiley’s work will provide a rich comparative framework to help answer long-standing and pressing questions in biology: What are the governing rules structuring ecological diversity? How do species adapt and diversify during times of environmental upheaval?
“I’m thrilled to receive the NSF CAREER award to advance our knowledge of eco-evolutionary responses to landscape and climate change across space and time,” Smiley said. “This support from the NSF will help us gain an understanding of an understudied group of mammals — small mammals — that may act as first responders to environmental changes like climate warming and habitat transitions. I am especially pleased that, through partnership with Stony Brook University’s Turkana Basin Institute, this work will provide high-impact training opportunities for students, strengthen international collaborations across career stages, and promote capacity-building for emerging national and international scholars in paleontology.”
“Tara’s work exemplifies the power of paleontology to illuminate the connections between life and climate — by unlocking the small-mammal fossil record, she is revealing how ecological and evolutionary processes respond to environmental change across time scales,” said Joshua Rest, associate professor and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolution. “This CAREER award recognizes not only Tara’s innovative research on how landscapes and climates shape biodiversity, but also her dedication to mentoring students and building a program that bridges the fossil record, modern ecology, and the classroom. Her achievement reflects the exciting trajectory of the Department of Ecology and Evolution at SBU and aligns with our vision of addressing the great challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss through integrative and quantitative science. It underscores our shared commitment to understanding how life responds to changing environments.”
Smiley is an evolutionary ecologist interested in how climate and landscape history shape the diversity, biogeography, and ecological structure of mammalian faunas across spatio-temporal scales. She tests hypotheses about how changes in climate, tectonic activity, topographic complexity, and habitat heterogeneity impact communities and ecological processes at local scales and govern diversity at regional scales.
Smiley’s research group integrates fieldwork, specimen-based research, and quantitative paleobiology. Primary tools of its research include stable isotope ecology and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, analysis of trait variation, diversification analysis, and coupling of geological and biological modeling approaches. The group works in western North America and in the East African Rift, both tectonically active and dynamic landscapes with high species richness today and in the past. Along with collaborators at the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), the group is actively developing projects in the fossil-rich setting of Turkana Basin in Kenya.
“TBI is such a tremendous resource here at SBU and their involvement is key to the success of the grant,” Smiley said. “[TBI Director] Dino Martins wrote a strong letter of collaboration for the proposal. Both he and Gabrielle Russo (deputy director of TBI) know about the CAREER project and have been very supportive all along the way.”
Educational objectives of Smiley’s project include the development of field-, collections-, and lab-based educational and research experiences for students and early-career scientists. The project will additionally foster and support a cohort of U.S. and Kenyan scholars to produce collaborative research, implement feasible solutions to challenges in data sharing, participate in technical training, and generate educational resources for local communities in Kenya.
The NSF CAREER Award is among the most prestigious honors for early-career faculty in the United States. It supports researchers who demonstrate the potential to become academic role models in both research and education, and who are poised to lead advances in their disciplines. The award is intended to help build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research.