Nicolas is a PhD student at Columbia Unversity in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
They are also a Graduate Student Fellow at the American Natural History Museum in the Division of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Richard Gilder Graduate School.
They study paleobiology, macroevolution, ecomorphology, and how we can use the fossil record to understand climate change in the past and present.
They also study the effects of long-term climate change on the evolution of body shape and size in camels, horses, antelopes, and other herbivorous terrestrial ungulates of the present and (relatively) recent past.
Janis, C. M., Richardson, W., Morales-Garcia, N. M., & Baird, C. N. (2024). A horse walks into a bar: an explanation for the long face. Annales Zoologici Fennici, 61, 503–529. [pdf]
Baird, C. N. (2024). Ecomorphology of North American camelids and the changing climate of the Miocene. Master’s thesis (M.A., Columbia University).
Baird, C. N., Ernst, M., Waurick, I., Blom, M. P. K., & Bibi, F. (2024). Integrative taxonomy using historical specimens provides evidence for a single species of bushbuck, Tragelaphus scriptus (Mammalia: Bovidae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 200(2), 532–546. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad096.
Janis, C. M., Franklin, E., Baird, C. N., & Tyler, J. (2023). The Miocene browsing horses: Another way to be a successful large equid. In H. H. T. Prins & I. J. Gordon (Eds.), The Equids (pp. 47–71). Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-27144-1_3.
Baird, C. N. (2018). A taphonomic analysis of vertebrate fossils excavated from the cemeteries & rock-cut tombs of Qau el-Kebir, Egypt. Master’s thesis (MSc, Imperial College London).