A College of the Holy Cross professor has received a National Science Foundation grant of nearly $500,000 to create an online database of bird skeletons.
The grant was awarded to Leon Claessens, an assistant professor of biology at the college. He is working with Harvard biology professor Scott V. Edwards to create a three-dimensional online database of bird skeletons in order to help fellow researchers, students and amateurs track evolutionary changes in birds.
Part of the $497,735 grant will be used to purchase new 3D scanning and imaging software and equipment. All the scanning for the project will be done by undergraduate students.
Over the summer, Claessens filmed an episode of an upcoming History Channel series entitled “Evolve.”
