People

Kate LoMedico Marriott
Founder and Lab PI (she/they)

A sutural ammonitologist, general paleontologist, and paleoceanographer, Kate has served as
an Adjunct Professor of Oceanography Research at the Brooklyn College STEM Research
Institute, overseeing a diverse portfolio of marine and environmental science research. She
teaches chemistry and physics for the New York City Department of Education. Kate is deeply
committed to fostering equity and accessibility within paleontological spaces for students
from marginalized backgrounds.

Kate holds an M.S. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Brooklyn College and an M.A.T.
in Earth Science from the American Museum of Natural History. Her research has significantly
advanced the study of ammonoid sutures through the development of the LLS method—
a novel system for acquiring fractal dimensions from incomplete ammonite sutures.
This method is now utilized and taught at several universities across North America and is used in
taxonomic and ontogenetic studies, as well as increasing access and sample sizes to include
photographs and broken specimens. In 2022, she founded Ammodata, a global open-source
repository for ammonoid morphological and isotopic data.

Her current research focuses on the intersection of ocean acidification, climate change, and ammonite suture complexity during the Maastrichtian Stage, as well as septal organogenesis and microevolutionary mutation rates. Since 2024, Kate has led research that has showed ammonite sutures as a powerful climate indicator. She currently holds the record for the most complex ammonite suture ever mathematically analyzed.

Kate is perhaps better known as an artist in the paleontology world, and was awarded a special mention in the International Award on Science Illustration in 2018 for her work on heteromorph ammonoids. She co-authored Evolution of the Ammonoids (#1 Amazon New Release in Fossils, 2023) with Donald Prothero and Alex Bartholomew, contributing roughly 200 original drawings. Most recently, her life reconstruction of Diplomoceras has been featured alongside the famous two meter long Zinsmeister specimen at the Marvelous Mollusks exhibit at the Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca, NY.

Oryx Stormlance
Deputy PI (they/them)

Oryx's bio coming soon.

Mai Tran
Senior Research Assistant
(she/her)

Mai Tran is a senior research assistant at Suture Lab. She is a first-year student at Princeton
University, planning to major in Chemical and Biological Engineering with minors in Computer
Science and French. She joined Suture Lab in 2023, working on quantitative characterization of
ammonite sutures and computational approaches to estimating natural fractal dimensions.
Outside of paleontology, Mai has done research in electrochemistry and sustainable materials for
energy storage as a member of the Suarez Lab at Brooklyn College. In her free time, she enjoys
playing piano, library hopping, and going on long walks at night.