Thaís Rabito Pansani

Olá   Hello   Hola   Salut   

I'm a Brazilian paleontologist, working with Pleistocene megafauna for the past 10 years. I have experience working with traditional and state-of-the-art techniques, such as stereomicroscopes, scanning electron microscopy, stable isotopes, and synchrotron-based techniques. My main topics of interest are paleoecology, taphonomy, zooarchaeology, bone surface modification, and research related to human-megafauna interactions in South America, megafauna extinction, climate change during the Quaternary, and the peopling of the Americas.

I'm interested in these main scientific questions: When did humans arrive in the Americas? Did humans interact with the Pleistocene megafauna? What were the environmental and ecological conditions in which these megamamammals lived? What were the causes and consequences of the megafauna extinction in the American continent, especially in South America? How can we identify traces of human interaction in extinct animal bones through taphonomy? How understanding the ecological behavior of early humans with the now-extinct megafauna through paleoecology and zooarchaeology can contribute to other fields, such as conservation biology?

Besides academic research, I am also interested in teaching, science communication, and outreach.