Paleoart | Kate LoMedico Marriott

About kate

Hello, my name is Kate LoMedico Marriott and I am an adjunct lecturer of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Brooklyn College. I am a paleontologist, paleoartist, mermaid performer, and arachnid keeping hobbyist. As a teacher, I am committed to dismantling the ways that ableism, classism, and trauma operate in academia. As a researcher and colleague, I value diverse experiences. My own background is somewhat unconventional. I originally trained in sculpture at the State University of New York at Purchase, but I earned my B.A. in visual arts and a minor in geology from the State University of New York at New Paltz. I will be defending my M.S. thesis in invertebrate paleontology at Brooklyn College in New York during the Fall 2021 semester.

I used to be the in-house paleontologist at Astro Gallery of Gems on Fifth Avenue in New York City and I have authored or co-authored of several publications on ammonites, including one systematizing the paleoart theory of Didymoceras (now in press) and another which lays out a new method for fractal analysis of ammonite sutures (in review). I have also submitted published research in fossil mammals. My research interests include functional morphology, mass extinction recoveries, and low-temperature isotope geochemistry.

In 2018, I became a Special Mention Finalist in Illustraciencia: the International Award on Scientific Illustration in Madrid, Spain. After Richard Ellis of “The Whale” at AMNH, I am only the second paleoartist to be inducted into the Ocean Artists’ Society, which was cofounded by Wyland, Bob Talbot, and Dr. Guy Harvey and whose science advisor is Dr. Sylvia Earle. I am also the founder and co-director of The Society of Invertebrate Paleoartists. We are working on creating a journal for invertebrate paleoart and we plan to donate some art to a museum which caught fire a few years ago.

I was born in Connecticut in 1990 and have lived on the outskirts of New York City my entire life. I am Sicilian and Irish. My family has a legacy of science art: I am the great-great niece of Thomas Gaetano LoMedico, the noted sculptor commissioned in 1970 to design the Texas Astronauts Medal of Valor awarded to the Apollo 11 astronauts. My work has been featured in Dekit! Magazine, Susan Cohn Rockefeller's documentary Mission of Mermaids: a Love Letter to the Ocean, on Spanish National Television, Fossil News Magazine, and I have been lucky with opportunities to complete commissions and artwork for some of the foremost natural history institutions in the world. I started writing a book called Evolution of the Ammonoids in between college and grad school, and I am in the process of finishing this book (coming soon from CRC Press/Taylor & Francis!) along with two of my favorite people in the world.

EXHIBITS

CURRENT

Cave House Museum of Mining and Geology

Howe Caverns, NY | October 2016-

Permanent Exhibit, Didymoceras stevensoni

PAST

Illustraciencia Inaugural Conference Exhibitions

Malaga | Jan-Mar, 2020

Heteromorphic Ammonoids of the Matanuska Formation, Turonian, Alaska

LaGuardia Community College

NYC | Feb-Apr, 2019

Ammonoidea Illuminated: Originals