Kaiden O’Dell

Kaiden lives in Salina, KS, and considers this to be his hometown, but he has also spent a significant amount of his life residing in the town of Hays, KS. Kaiden graduated from Fort Hays State University (FHSU) with a Bachelor’s Degree in geology, with minors in biology and English composition, as well as a certificate in museum science. Kaiden’s academic focus at FHSU was in the field of paleontology, and his research interests include taxonomy, phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, and the Permian-Triassic extinction. Prior to working at The Land Institute, Kaiden worked as an intern at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. As a collections intern, he spent a lot of time identifying broken fragments of vertebrate fossil material. While working with invertebrates like moths and bees will be a bit of a change, I am excited to work with modern, complete specimens.