Dr. Baumgartner describes how a warming climate some 20 million years ago led to the emergence of the famous grasslands of Kenya and other areas of East Africa. The introduced a better and more abundant form of nutrition for many creatures. The shift from forest/jungle to grasslands promoted species diversity and evolution, including that of our earliest human ancestors. Dr. Baumgartner explains how scientists use fossils to reconstruct the complex historical record of the Miocene.
**Aly Baumgartner** is Collections Manager of Paleontology at the Fort Hays State University Sternberg Museum of Natural History. from Hanover, Michigan. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan (2012) where she discovered her love of fossil plants. She then earned her M.S. in Biology from East Tennessee State University (2014) and her Ph.D. in Geosciences from Baylor University (2020). Aly joined the Sternberg Museum staff in July 2020 as Collections Manager of Paleontology. As Collections Manager of Paleontology, she is responsible for overseeing the paleontology and geology collections as well as the fossil prep lab.