Meet Reptile and Amphibian Expert, Simon Scarpetta

This week starts our countdown to the fall semester. Over the past month, we’ve highlighted some new classes, and now we’re highlighting new faculty. This week we’re featuring Simon Scarpetta, who will join our Environmental Science Department this academic year.

Simon’s lifelong passion for reptiles and amphibians led him into the environmental field, driven to conserve both the animals and the ecosystems they inhabit. He received his PhD in Geosciences with a specialty in paleontology studying Cenozoic fossils of North American lizards. His continued interest in lizards led him to his National Science Foundation (NSF) Postdoctoral Fellowship, where he built a research program in phylogenomics to further analyze evolutionary relationships and timescales of iguanian lizards (Professor Scarpetta’s favorite group of lizards)!

This fall semester, Simon will be teaching Quantitative Methods and Climate Science in the MSEM Program. Having taught climate science, geology, and paleontology courses in other programs, he is excited to bring his skills and extensive research to USF. His passion for the natural world and teaching will bring MSEM students valuable insights and a deeper understanding of these disciplines. Simon is looking forward to getting to know his students in our small-class size setting and is excited about teaching in our program on such a beautiful campus and in an incredible city!

If you’d like to learn more about Professor Scarpetta’s work, you can read some of his publications below:

• Effects of phylogenetic uncertainty on fossil identification illustrated by a new and enigmatic Eocene iguanian
• Combined-evidence analyses of ultraconserved elements and morphological data: an empirical example in iguanian lizards
• The first known fossil Uma: ecological evolution and the origins of North American fringe-toed lizards
• Evolution of North American Lizards