#  Stephanie E. Pierce 

Sabbatical Spring 2026

Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and Interim Curator of Mammalogy in the Museum of Comparative Zoology

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology

Director of Graduate Studies

 

 

 



   ![Stephanie Pierce with long, blonde hair wearing a green sweater, patterned shirt, in front of grey background ](/sites/g/files/omnuum6811/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/oeb/files/stephanie_pierce_crop.jpeg?itok=1JwBgtPG) 

 



 

 location\_on The Museum of Comparative Zoology26 Oxford StreetCambridge, MA 02138 

 email <spierce@oeb.harvard.edu> 

 laptop\_windows [Stephanie Pierce Lab](https://stephaniepiercelab.oeb.harvard.edu/) 

 

 



 

Faculty Support: [Tracy Barbaro](/people/tracy-barbaro)

My scholarly interests are focused on assessing the link between form and function of the vertebrate musculoskeletal system – especially with respect to muscle-skeletal interactions during feeding and locomotor behaviours in modern and extinct animals.

**Recent Publications**

Brocklehurst R, P Fahn-Lai , S Regnault and SE Pierce. 2022. Musculoskeletal modelling of sprawling and parasagittal forelimbs provides insight into synapsid postural transition. *iScience* 25(1):103578

Simões TR and SE Pierce. 2021. Sustained high rates of morphological evolution during the rise of tetrapods. *Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution* 5(10):1403-1414

Whitney MR and SE Pierce. 2021. Osteohistology of *Greererpeton* provides insight into the life history of an early Carboniferous tetrapod. *Journal of Anatomy* 239(6):1256-1272

Jones KE, BV Dickson, KD Angielczyk and SE Pierce. 2021. Adaptive landscapes challenge “lateral-to-sagittal’ paradigm for mammalian vertebral function. *Current Biology* 31:1883-1892.e7

Molnar JL, JR Hutchinson, R Diogo, JA Clack and SE Pierce. 2021. Evolution of forelimb musculoskeletal function across the fish-to-tetrapod transition. *Science Advances* 7(4):eabd7457

Dickson, BV, JA Clack, TR Smithson and SE Pierce. 2021. Functional adaptive landscapes predict terrestrial capacity with origin of limbs. *Nature* 589:242-245



 

 

 





 

 

- ## Building
    
     [MCZ](/building/mcz) [MCZ Labs](/building/mcz-labs)
- ## Faculty Affiliation
    
     [Museum of Comparative Zoology](/faculty-affiliation/museum-comparative-zoology)
- ## Lab Group
    
     [Stephanie Pierce Lab Members](/lab-group/stephanie-pierce-lab)
- ## People
    
     [Faculty](/people/faculty) [Department Faculty](/people/department-faculty)
- ## Research Areas
    
     [Evolution](/research-areas/evolution) [Behavior](/research-areas/behavior) [Biomechanics](/research-areas/biomechanics) [Paleobiology](/research-areas/paleobiology)
- ## Search by Last Name
    
     [M-P](/search-last-name/m-p)