Lauren Sallan is a ‘next generation’ paleobiologist applying cutting-edge developments in ‘Big Data’ analytics and experimental biomechanics to reveal how evolution happens at the largest scales (macroevolution). Lauren uses the vast fossil record of fishes as a deep time database, mining to find out why some species persist and diversify while others die off. She has used these methods to discover the lost, largest, 'sixth' mass extinction of vertebrates, the end-Devonian Hangenberg event (359 million years ago), reveal how fish heads changed first during their rise to dominance, and show how invasions by new predators can shift prey diversity at global scales.Lauren’s research has been published in high-profile venues such as Science, PNAS, and Current Biology. It has also been featured in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, the New Scientist, the Discovery Channel, the textbook Vertebrate Paleontology by Michael Benton and the popular science book The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen (Harper Collins). Lauren was given the 2015 Stensio Award for top early career paleoichthyologist, selected for the 2018 Distinguished Service Award for Early Achievement by the University of Chicago, and chosen as a TED Fellow in 2017 (1 of 15 worldwide). Her TED Talk on how species survive mass extinctions was featured on the TED website and has received over 1 million views.