Check Claims Before You Publish

Evidence synthesis (selected)

• High-throughput palaeoproteomics contribution: SPIN (Nature Communications, 2022) — co-author on a collaborative methods paper that increased throughput for species ID of archaeological bone, open-access and broadly cited, indicating methodological reach across archaeology and proteomics SPIN proteomics (2022)
• Hominin craniofacial form & behavioural inference: first-author Nature Ecology & Evolution paper (2018) linking supraorbital morphology to social signalling; high-profile venue and citations, but inherently interpretive—morphology-to-behaviour inference requires careful caution and multiple lines of evidence Supraorbital morphology (2018)
• Range of methods: geometric morphometrics, finite element analysis (FEA), virtual reconstruction, proteomics, palaeopathology and archaeological field studies — demonstrates methodological breadth across skeletal biomechanics and archaeological science (multiple medium/high-quality journals represented).

Citation & productivity metrics

OpenAlex top-author snapshot: works_count ≈ 36, cited_by_count ≈ 404, h_index ≈ 12 (profile: OpenAlex A5023404104). The author-level metrics and high-impact papers (listed above) corroborate a mid-career researcher with growing visibility in paleoanthropology.

Actionable recommendations to strengthen scientific profile

1. Clarify individual contribution in multi-author methods papers (author contribution statements) to increase credit for methodological innovations.
2. Increase reproducibility: deposit code, FEA meshes, morphometrics datasets and raw CT stacks in accessible repositories with DOIs (e.g., Morphosource, Zenodo) — this will raise reproducibility scores.
3. Pursue follow-up studies with independent samples for interpretive claims (e.g., morphology-behaviour links) to convert hypothesis-generating work into more falsifiable tests.
4. Lead single-lab, first/last-author synthesis papers that integrate proteomics, microanatomy and morphometrics to convert interdisciplinary collaborations into demonstrable intellectual leadership.

Limitations & epistemic cautions

Citation counts and h-index are useful but imperfect proxies of scientific quality — they can reflect network effects, team size, or single high-impact papers. Morphological inference about behaviour is inherently indirect; proteomic/FEA methods are powerful but must be open and reproducible to be fully convincing. Follow-up replication and data-sharing will materially change the assessment.