Derek Briggs


Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum.

Education

Briggs was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology in 1972. He went on to the University of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington. He was awarded a PhD in 1976 on Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada.

Research and Career

While at the University of Cambridge, Briggs worked on the fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia alongside a fellow student Simon Conway Morris, both under the supervision of Harry Whittington, on the exceptionally well-preserved Burgess Shale fauna. The Burgess Shale project subsequently became one of the most celebrated endeavours in the field of palaeontology in the latter half of the 20th century. On 1 July 2008 he took over as Director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He became the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale in 2011.
Briggs's research is on the taphonomy, or preservation, and evolutionary significance of the exceptionally preserved fossil biotas known as Konservat-Lagerstätten – fossil formations that include evidence of faunal soft tissue. His work involves a range of approaches from experimental work on the factors controlling decay and fossilisation, through studies of early diagenetic mineralisation and organic preservation, to field work on a range of fossil occurrences.
DatePosition
1974–1977Postdoctoral research Fellow, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
1977–1985Department of Geology, Goldsmiths College, University of London
1985–2002Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
2001–2002Visiting professor, Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago
2003–Professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and Curator in charge of Invertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
2004–2007Director of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies
2008–2014Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
2011–G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University

Awards and honours

His nomination for election to the Royal Society reads: