As part of my PhD work, I study the development of archosaurian brains and postcranial nervous systems including modern alligators and chickens to inform about key innovations in early archosaurian evolution. My work integrates paleontological and developmental methods and includes collection work, contrast-enhanced μCT-scanning, and immunohistochemistry to understand what changes in development led to the morphologies we see today.

While brains are not available in the fossil record, braincase endocasts can convey a lot of information about brain shape in extinct taxa. I work with morphometric and phylogenetic methods to uncover evolutionary trends in archosauromorph brain morphology and inform about the relationship between form and function.

I am interested in early sphenodontians and the evolutionary timing of key changes in their cranial morphology. 

Freisem L S, Müller J, Sues H-D, Sobral G (2024). A new sphenodontian (Diapsida: Lepidosauria) from the Upper Triassic (Norian) of Germany and its implications for the mode of sphenodontian evolution. BMC Ecology and Evolution 24, 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-024-02218-1