Staff & Faculty Directory

Adam Cossette is a vertebrate paleobiologist who applies phylogenetic comparative methods, functional morphology, and geometric morphometric methods to understand biodiversity. He graduated with a Ph.D. focusing on vertebrate paleobiology from the University of Iowa Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2018.

Cossette’s research consists of three main components: naming new fossil species; exploring evolutionary trends of fossil and living species; and determining biotic response to climate change and major environmental disruptions.

Much of Cossette’s work focuses on evolutionary trends and morphologies of the earliest members of Crocodylia, including the ancient ancestors of today’s American alligator. Crocodylia is an ideal group to test evolutionary hypotheses because its excellent fossil record, along with genomic information, allows for integrated morphological and molecular approaches.

Cossette joined New York Tech College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2019.