Meet the PhD in Palaeontology student obsessed with a 100-million-year-old bird

When present life is filled with breakups, conflicts, money problems, and a burning planet, no less, it seems unthinkable that anyone has the energy to care about anything else.

Much less about things that have been extinct for millions of years.

Why do people invest their lives into what Ancient Egyptians did or how kings in the Iron Age ruled?

It sounds strange to say the least, if not just downright crazy.

That is, until you realise it’s actually one of the coolest ways to explore life, death, and survival on earth.

Grace Kinney Broderick, a PhD in Palaeontology candidate at the University of Cambridge, is doing just that by focusing years of research on a 100-million-year-old bird. 

Broderick began working as a fossil preparator at age eleven in Dr. Paul Sereno’s fossil lab at the University of Chicago. Source: Grace Kinney Broderick

How a palaeontology degree (and a 100-million-year-old bird) will benefit the future

Palaeontology isn’t just about dinosaurs (though they’re a significant part of the fun).

National Geographic describes the field as “the study of the history of life on Earth as based on fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, and single-celled living things that have been replaced by rock material or impressions of organisms preserved in rock.”

The remains Broderick is concerned about are the flying kinds.

“For my PhD, I’m studying avian evolution and morphology — specifically of Confuciusornis, a bird from China,” Broderick shares. 

“The first part of my research is all about their skeletons. I go bone by bone, describing what each one does. For example, if a bone has a groove in it, I’ll dig deeper to find out what that might mean, like whether the bird could actually fly.”

TLDR: She’s reconstructing what this ancient bird might’ve looked like, how it moved, and even how it behaved — all through its bones.

The second part of her research focuses on the bird’s hind legs and feet to determine how it used them.

“Every bird uses its feet differently — like, you won’t see a duck perching on a tree branch because its feet are built for swimming,” she says. “I’ll then compare Confuciusornis to modern birds to figure out what it might have done with its own feet.”

But what is the point of knowing this about birds? More so, about a bird that’s been extinct for 100 million years?

Well, there’s quite a lot.

“These extinct birds are pretty mysterious, and they help us understand some big evolutionary questions,” Broderick says. “There’s a major evolutionary leap from dinosaurs to birds, and Confuciusornis is one of those missing links. Studying it helps us piece together how modern birds came to be.”

Ultimately, Broderick hopes her research will get into academic journals and inspire.

“I’d love for this to lead to drawings or documentaries that bring this creature to life for future generations,” she says. “Maybe it’ll even get more people into science, just like I was inspired.”

Broderick attended Boston College, where she received a BSc in Environmental Geoscience. Source: Grace Kinney Broderick

Falling in love with the past

For Broderick, the journey into palaeontology began with a flash of neon pink.

“When I was six, I stumbled upon a bright, hot pink book during library time,” she recalls. “It was a basic dinosaur book with all these illustrations of extinct creatures. I thought it was the coolest thing — and it just snowballed from there.”

At 11, she got her first real taste of palaeontology, working as a fossil preparator in Dr. Paul Sereno’s fossil lab at the University of Chicago.

By 14, she was out in the Badlands of Wyoming, digging up dinosaurs. (Badlands are “rugged landscape featuring rock formations with bands of color.”)

Her fossil-hunting adventures even took her to the Sahara Desert in Niger for a month-long expedition.

In 2016, Broderick pursued a degree in environmental geoscience, complemented by a minor in film studies, at Boston College.

“Boston College didn’t have a palaeontology programme, so this was the closest thing,” she says. “It was still really helpful — understanding Earth’s history is essential to studying extinct life.”

Some classes weren’t quite on theme (like molecular biology and human anatomy), so Broderick got creative. She started taking extra courses at Harvard University to stay on the dinosaur track.

Broderick has released one publication, “An exceptionally preserved Sphenodon-like sphenodontian reveals deep time conservation of the tuatara skeleton and ontogeny.” Source: Grace Kinney Broderick

From classic dinosaurs to extinct birds

As a lifelong “dinosaur nerd,” Broderick thought she’d spend her life studying massive, scaly reptiles.

Then, birds happened.

“It was at the end of my undergraduate degree,” she says. “I had some time to kill and the school was piloting an ornithology class, so my friends and I decided to take it for laughs.”

At first, she found birds a bit ridiculous. She and her friends created vlogs during birdwatching sessions just to pass the time. But somewhere between the laughs and lectures, something changed.

“I fell in love with it. I’m an avid birdwatcher now — I even do wildlife photography,” Broderick laughs. “That class made me switch from dinosaurs to extinct birds.”

In 2021, she moved to the UK to pursue an MSc in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol, with a focus on the neuroanatomy of the extinct elephant bird.

“It was exactly the programme I needed,” she says. “They had a system where if your background was in biology, you’d take geology courses, and vice versa. It filled the gaps and set me on the right path.”

After completing her MSc, Broderick joined the University of Cambridge, ranked #8 for best universities for palaeontology in the world by EduRank, for her PhD in Earth Science (Palaeontology) — and she’s just getting started.

While many assume a PhD leads straight to becoming a professor, Broderick’s got her eyes on a different path.

“I want to stay in research, maybe work in museums,” she says.

“I’d love to work in a natural history museum — as a researcher or even a curator. But honestly, I’m open to wherever this degree takes me, as long as I get to keep doing what I love.”