Miriam joined Lifeways in early 2019 from her own palaeontological business, and brings almost 10 years of palaeontological consulting experience. She has worked on a wide variety of projects from oil and gas to urban developments, linear projects, windfarms, gravel pits, transportation, and mines throughout the northern plains and subarctic/northern boreal forest regions of Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as having international palaeontological experience in Brazil, Argentina, Mongolia, and Germany. Miriam received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, and her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta where she studied under Dr. Philip Currie.
Miriam’s dissertation was a study of North American and Asian theropod teeth (theropods include a lot of the big meat-eating dinosaurs that your children know all about), but she also has extensive experience with deposits ranging from the Devonian to the Quaternary. In addition to vertebrates and invertebrate palaeontology, Miriam brings expertise in taphonomy (the study of how fossils are formed, and the chemistry of different types of mineralization), ichnology (footprints, burrows, and other traces), palaeobotany, and the study of eggs and coprolites (fossilized feces). For the past eight years Miriam has assisted or led in the implementation of palaeontological Historical Resources Impact Assessments (pHRIA), including monitoring, Statements of Justification (SoJ), and the submission of Historical Resources Applications for clearance.

Academic Degrees: Ph.D. (Biological Sciences), University of Alberta, 2012; M.Sc. (Geosciences) Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2006; B.Sc. (Biological Sciences), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2004.