# Valentine Bouju Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow, September 2024 - August 2026 Brian Farrell Lab ![a person sanding in tall green grass in a cloud forest](/sites/g/files/omnuum6431/files/styles/hwp_4_5__480x600/public/2025-01/Valentine%20Bouju.jpg?itok=Aet8-30C) location\_on Museum of Comparative Zoology email I am a palaeontologist fascinated by amber (fossilized resin) and its exquisitely preserved inclusions. By enclosing samples of arthropods and plants from a long gone ecosystem, amber offers a window to past environments. I specialized in the study of fossilized insects, especially dipterans and ants, as well as the study of cryptogam plants, especially liverworts. As a palaeoentomologist and a palaeobotanist, I look into the preserved ecosystem to retrieve information on the biodiversity of the palaeoentomofauna, and on the biotic interactions. My main objective is to contribute to the inventory of palaeobiodiversity, to describe new species, and to track the morphological evolution of species. Based on the worldwide amber record, I also look at the biogeographical evolution of taxa. And thanks to a multidisciplinary biological and geological expertise, I combine the systematic results obtained with the study of the sedimentary context of the amber deposit, in order to draw a picture of the past environment and its evolution through time. At the MCZ, I will expand my research to the Cenozoic (Miocene) amber from Dominican Republic, focusing on the ant assemblage, to strengthen my knowledge of the systematics, evolution, and palaeobiogeography of the family Formicidae.