Professor Sam Giles

Professor Sam Giles

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of Palaeobiology
Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow

Contact details

Telephone
+44(0) 121 41 49130
Email
s.giles.1@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@GilesPalaeoLab
View my research portal
Address
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Sam Giles is a Professor of Palaeobiology with an interest in the anatomy, relationships, and macroevolution of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic fossil fishes. Her research uses x-ray imaging (CT scanning) to unlock the external and internal anatomy of living and fossil vertebrates. She is interested in the origins and evolutionary success of different bony vertebrate groups and the evolution of key features in the vertebrate body plan. Her work has led to major revisions in our understanding of origins of gnathostomes, osteichthyans, and teleosts, some of the most species-rich vertebrate clades.

Qualifications

  • 2015 – PhD, University of Oxford
  • 2011 – MSci Geology, University of Bristol

Biography

2018 – Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow, University of Birmingham and Academic Keeper (Research) of the Lapworth Museum of Geology

2017 – 2018 Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow, University of Oxford

2015 – 2019 Junior Research Fellow, Christ Church, Oxford

 

Teaching

Sam contributes to the Y3 Field and Museum Skills module and the Y4 Advanced Project module. She also teaches on the Y3 Basins Analysis and Neotectonics field course and supervises undergraduate dissertations.

Research

Sam Giles is a vertebrate palaeontologist with an interest in the anatomy, relationships, and macroevolution of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic fossil fishes. Her research uses x-ray imaging (CT scanning) to unlock the external and internal anatomy of living and fossil vertebrates. She is interested in the origins and evolutionary success of different bony vertebrate groups and the evolution of key features in the vertebrate body plan. Her work has led to major revisions in our understanding of origins of gnathostomes, osteichthyans, and teleosts, some of the most species-rich vertebrate clades.

Other activities

  • Academic Keeper (Research) of the Lapworth Museum of Geology (2018–present)
  • Scientific Associate, Natural History Museum, London (2019–present)
  • Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award committee member (2020– 2022)
  • NERC Community Diversity Group (2021)
  • Fellow of the Geological Society of London (2019–present)
  • Palaeontological Association council member (2019–2022)
  • Palaeontographical Society council member (2019–2022)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Friedman, M & Giles, S 2026, 'Cranial structure in †Chondrosteus acipenseroides re-examined: implications for upper jaw homologies in acipenseriform fishes', Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, vol. 37, no. 6, pp. 117–143. https://doi.org/10.7302/28802

Henderson, S & Giles, S 2026, 'The many faces of ‘Mesonichthys’: new anatomical and taxonomic diversity among Carboniferous ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) from the U.K.', Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 46, no. 2, e2661319. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2026.2661319

Flannery-Sutherland, JT, Tims, AR, Clarke, J, Friedman, M & Giles, S 2026, 'The phylogenetic signal of extinction through the rise and fall of early vertebrates: field of bullets or clustered strike?', Evolution; international journal of organic evolution. https://doi.org/10.1093/evolut/qpag116

Knapp, A, Rangel-de Lazaro , G, Friedman, M, Johanson, Z, Evans, KM, Giles, S, Beckett, H & Goswami, A 2025, 'Adaptive radiation of pelagiarian fishes at the K/Pg boundary led to rapid diversification of mandible morphology', Evolution Letters. https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qraf046

Friedman, M, Mondéjar-Fernández, J, Henderson, S, Challands, T & Giles, S 2025, 'Braincase and endocast anatomy in porolepiforms (Sarcopterygii: Dipnomorpha): evidence from the Early Devonian (Emsian) ‘porolepidid’ Durialepis edentatus', Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 115, no. 3-4, pp. 130-146. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755691024000057

Flannery Sutherland, J, Henderson, S, Fasey, S & Giles, S 2025, 'Diversification dynamics of the Palaeozoic actinopterygian radiation', Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences, vol. 292, no. 2061, 20252732. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2732

Schnetz, L, Lanzetti, A, Jones, A, Dearden, R, Lautenschlager, S, Giles, S, Johanson, Z & Sansom, I 2025, 'From head to tail: 3D imaging the whole body morphology of the stem gnathostome Anglaspis heintzi', Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 44, no. 5, e2476441. https://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2025.2476441

Cavicchini, I, Wilson, PF, Giles, S, Atterby, J, Jones, AS, Williams, MA & Clements, T 2025, 'Investigating the impact of x-rays on decay: x-ray computed tomography as a non-invasive visualization technique for sediment-based decay experiments', Palaeontology, vol. 68, no. 3, e70007. https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.70007

Troyer, EM, Rivero-Vega, RA, Cui, X, Zhu, M, Qiao, T, Saad, HH, Figueroa, RT, Andrews, JV, Clement, AM, Lebedev, OA, Higgins, RR, Igielman, B, Pierce, SE, Giles, S & Friedman, M 2025, 'Macroevolutionary role reversals in the earliest radiation of bony fishes', Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.08.008

Cavicchini, I, Argyriou, T, Fernandez, V, Dollman, K & Giles, S 2025, 'Redescription of Pteronisculus gunnari (Nielsen, 1942) from a juvenile specimen from the Early Triassic of East Greenland, with implications for the ontogeny of early actinopterygians', Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, vol. 23, no. 1, 2492673. https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2025.2492673

Igielman, B, Figueroa, RT, Higgins, RR, Pierce, SE, Coates, MI, Troyer, EM, Fernandez, V, Dollman, K, Lu, J, Zhu, M, Friedman, M & Giles, S 2025, 'The lower jaw of Devonian ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii): Anatomy, relationships, and functional morphology', Anatomical Record. https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.70005

Giles, S, Kolmann, M & Friedman, M 2025, 'Tongue-bite apparatus highlights functional innovation in a 310-million-year-old ray-finned fish', Biology Letters, vol. 21, no. 9, 20250270. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2025.0270

Friedman, M, Figueroa, RT, Hodnett, J-PM, Lucas, SG, Higgins, RR, Pierce, S & Giles, S 2024, 'A new genus and species of large macrodont actinopterygian from the Pennsylvanian (Kasimovian/Missourian) atrasado formation of New Mexico', Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 8-42. https://doi.org/10.7302/24900

Yu, D, Ren, Y, Uesaka, M, Beavan, AJS, Muffato, M, Shen, J, Li, Y, Sato, I, Wan, W, Clark, JW, Keating, JN, Carlisle, EM, Dearden, RP, Giles, S, Randle, E, Sansom, RS, Feuda, R, Fleming, JF, Sugahara, F, Cummins, C, Patricio, M, Akanni, W, D’Aniello, S, Bertolucci, C, Irie, N, Alev, C, Sheng, G, de Mendoza, A, Maeso, I, Irimia, M, Fromm, B, Peterson, KJ, Das, S, Hirano, M, Rast, JP, Cooper, MD, Paps, J, Pisani, D, Kuratani, S, Martin, FJ, Wang, W, Donoghue, PCJ, Zhang, YE & Pascual-Anaya, J 2024, 'Hagfish genome elucidates vertebrate whole-genome duplication events and their evolutionary consequences', Nature ecology & evolution, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 519-535. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02299-z

Figueroa, RT, Weinschütz, LC, Giles, S & Friedman, M 2024, 'Soft-tissue fossilization illuminates the stepwise evolution of the ray-finned fish brain', Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.05.027

View all publications in research portal