Dr. Devin Hoffman

PHD FELLOW ALUMNI   |   Global Change Center

VT Alumni May 2022  •   Geosciences

Advisor: Dr. Sterling Nesbitt

devinkh5@vt.edu

Devin joined the Paleobiology lab group at Virginia Tech with Dr. Sterling Nesbitt in the Fall of 2017, and sucessfully defended his dissertation in the Spring of 2022. Following graduation, he was a visiting Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences where he taught Paleontology. Currently Devin is a postdoctoral research fellow in paleontology working in the Department of Earth Science at University College London.

Devin earned his bachelor’s degree in Geology from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina in 2017. While an undergrad, he completed a senior honors thesis incorporating phylogenetics, computed tomography (CT), and histology to understand the evolution of the aetosaur Coahomasuchus chathamensis, an armored crocodile-relative. As an undergrad Devin also worked as an REU intern at the American Museum of Natural History on the Mammal Tree of Life Project and volunteered in the Paleontology Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. 

Devin is interested in the macroevolutionary and diversity responses of vertebrates to rapid environmental changes, particularly those surrounding mass extinctions. To do this he studies the Triassic Period (242-201 million years ago) when many modern groups of vertebrates evolved and rapid changes to terrestrial environment and animal assemblages occurred.

Last updated September 2023.