Dr. Thomas A .Hegna

The Hegna Lab

Dr. Thomas Hegna grew up in western Iowa and attended the University of Iowa where he fell in love with invertebrate paleontology. He graduated in the spring of 2004 with honors and high distinction in Geoscience (B.S.) with minors in English and Philosophy. Dr. Hegna stayed at the University of Iowa for his M.S., graduating in the fall of 2006 after completing a project on the systematics and phylogeny of a fauna of upper Cambrian trilobites. He then moved on to Yale University where he completed his thesis on branchiopod crustacean phylogeny and their fossil record in the spring of 2012. 

He taught at Western Illinois University from the fall of 2011 to the spring of 2019.  In 2016, he was awarded the WIU Provost’s Excellence Award for Teaching with Technology. During the summer of 2019, he moved to Fredonia to teach in the Geology  & Environmental Sciences Department at SUNY Fredonia. In the spring of 2022, he was awarded the William T. and Charlotte N. Hagen Young Scholar/Artist award at SUNY Fredonia for his outstanding record of scholarship. In the spring of 2024, he was the SUNY Fredonia awardee for the Chancellor's award for excellence in scholarship. He has led two separate teams (one at WIU and another at SUNY Fredonia) that have received National Science Foundation grants for scanning electron microscopes. He has nearly 50 published peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and nearly 100 conference presentations. He has mentored the research projects of 40 students. He continues to study both the fossil record of trilobites and early crustaceans.

Teaching Interests

The history of life
Invertebrate paleontology
Sedimentary geology
Critical thinking

Research Interests

Arthropod evolution and fossilization

Awards and Honors

• William T. and Charlotte N. Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award, SUNY Fredonia (2022).
• SUNY Chancellor's award for excellence in scholarship, SUNY Fredonia (2024).

Professional Membership

• The Crustacean Society
• Palaeontological Association
• Paleontological Society
• Geological Society of America

Intellectual Contributions

• "Poschmann, M.J., T.A. Hegna, O. Emrich, J. Fischer, R.Hoffmann, T. Schindler & S. Voigt. Putative branchiopod and vertebrate eggs from the Remigiusberg Lagerstätte (Pennsylvanian-Permian boundary) of the Saar-Nahe Basin, SW Germany.," Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen. (2024).
• "Geyer, G., T.A. Hegna, & K.-P. Kelber. The end of the “living fossil” tale? A new look to Triassic specimens assigned to the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis (Notostraca) and associated phyllopods from the Vosges region (eastern France).," Papers in Palaeontology, 10(5): e1589. (2024).
• "Poschmann, M.J., T.A. Hegna, T.I. Astrop, & R. Hoffmann. Revision of lower Devonian clam shrimp (Branchiopoda, Diplostraca) from the Rhenish Massif (Eifel, SW-Germany), and the early colonization of non-marine palaeoenvironments.," Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, 104: 535-569. (2024).
• "Raman spectroscopic analysis of clam shrimp carapace composition (Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata, Cyclestherida): A dual calcium phosphate-calcium carbonate composition," Journal of Crustacean Biology (2020).
• ""The Fossil Record of the Pancrustacea." Pages 21-52. In G. Poore and M. Thiel (eds.): Evolution and Biogeography, volume VIII of the series The Natural History of the Crustacea.," Oxford University Press (2020).
• "The Fossil Record of Clam Shrimp (Crustacea; Branchiopoda)," Zoological Studies (2020).
• "A new fossil talitrid amphipod from the Lower Early Miocene Chiapas amber documented with microCT scanning," Journal of South American Earth Sciences (2020).

Media Contributions

• ""100 million-year-old fairy shrimp reproduced without sex (rare fossils reveal" LiveScience" (2022).

Presentations

• "Hegna, T.A. & S.R. Losso. How to eat with a fork: Unprecedented post-antennal appendage differentiation in the trilobite Isotelus (Asaphida; Ordovician).," 12th North American Paleontological Convention. June 17-21, Ann Arbor, MI. (2024).
• "Species, Vague Boundaries, and Biodiversity: Reframing Woodger’s Paradox," William T. and Charlotte N. Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award Ceremony (2022).
• "A fossil and phylogenetic perspective on marine-freshwater and freshwater-marine transitions in branchiopod crustaceans," Geological Society of America Annual Meeting (2022).