KATE LoMEDICO MARRIOTT

Kate LoMedico Marriott is the Founder and Principal Investigator of Suture Lab. She has served as an Adjunct Professor of Oceanography Research at the Brooklyn College STEM Research Institute, overseeing a diverse portfolio of marine and environmental science research. A dedicated educator, Kate teaches chemistry and physics for the New York City Department of Education. Kate is deeply committed to fostering equity and accessibility within paleontological spaces for students from marginalized backgrounds.

Kate holds an M.S. in Earth and Environmental Sciences from Brooklyn College and an M.A.T. in Earth Science from the American Museum of Natural History. Her research has significantly advanced the study of ammonoid sutures, most notably through the development of the LLS method—a novel system for acquiring fractal dimensions from incomplete ammonite sutures. This method is now utilized and taught at several universities across North America and is used in taxonomic and ontogenetic studies, as well as increasing access and sample sizes to include photographs and broken specimens. In 2022, she founded Ammodata, a global open-source repository for ammonoid morphological and isotopic data.

Her current research focuses on the intersection of ocean acidification, climate change, and ammonite suture complexity during the Maastrichtian Stage, as well as septal organogenesis and microevolutionary mutation rates. Since 2024, Kate has led research that has showed ammonite sutures as a powerful climate indicator. She currently holds the record for the most complex ammonite suture ever mathematically analyzed.

An experienced scientific illustrator, Kate was awarded a special mention in the International Award on Science Illustration in 2018 for her work on heteromorph ammonoids. She co-authored Evolution of the Ammonoids (#1 Amazon Release in Fossils, 2023) with Donald Prothero and Alex Bartholomew, contributing roughly 200 original drawings. She credits Alex with her entry into ammonoid paleoart. Most recently, her life reconstruction of Diplomoceras has been featured alongside the famous two meter long Zinsmeister specimen at the Marvelous Mollusks exhibit at the Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca, NY. 
 

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Kate was lucky to be born into the extremely artistic and biophilic Sicilian-American LoMedico family in which naturalist values were heavily instilled in her from an early age, inspiring her to study animals and plants through painting and drawing them. The great-great niece of sculptor Thomas Gaetano LoMedico, Kate learned to draw from her mother Laura LoMedico, a gifted oil painter, and her grandfather Philip John LoMedico (Grand Pa Phil) who worked as a lithographer and had an exceptional understanding of color theory. Phil most notably leant his talents to the Marilyn Monroe nudes on red satin and Saul Steinberg's "View of the World from 9th Avenue" cover for The New Yorker, the latter of which was originally set to be printed as a black-and-white line drawing before Phil infused the work with his color washes. Like Phil, Kate strives to add vibrant color where it is not expected, such as in the fossil record of ammonites, and this oft commented-upon feature of her work came directly from Grand Pa Phil.