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Sarah Stewart is Assistant Curator of Palaeobiology.
Dr Stewart studied geology at Edinburgh University graduating in 1998. She volunteered for a year at National Museums Scotland before studying for a Masters in Research (MRes) in Earth and Atmospheric Science at Reading University, with a dissertation in environmental archaeology analysing snail populations from a Mesolithic site near Newbury.
She was awarded a PhD from Glasgow University in 2005, researching Ordovician fossils from Girvan, South West Scotland. This research mainly focused on the diversity and distribution of fossil groups that are rare or can be difficult to identify, but are important for studying biodiversity and ecosystems as a whole.
She joined National Museums Scotland in 2004 as an Assistant Curator and currently has responsibility for the fossil molluscs, graptolites and problematic fossil groups in the Palaeobiology collection.
Her current research interests are principally the palaeoecology, biodiversity and taphonomy (how fossils are preserved) of Lower Palaeozoic (Cambrian-Silurian) fossils and faunas; and she actively participates in science education and outreach.
Taylor, M.A., McMillan, A.A., Stewart, S.E. and Anderson, L.I. 2023. The geological and historical milieu of an ornamental cephalopod limestone (‘orthoceratite limestone’, Ordovician, Sweden) used in the Clerk Mausoleum (1684), St Mungo’s Kirkyard, Penicuik, Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology 59. https://doi.org/10.1144/sjg2022-007
Botting, J.P., Stewart, S.E., Muir, L.A., and Zhang, Y. 2019. Taxonomy and evolution of the protomonaxonid sponge family Piraniidae. Palaeontologia Electronica. https://doi.org/10.26879/998
Stewart, S.E., Clarkson, E.N.K., Ahlgren, J., Ahlberg, P. & Scoenemann, B. 2015. Sphenothallus from the Furongian (Cambrian) of Scandanavia. GFF 137: 20-24.
Rahman, I. A., Stewart, S.E. and Zamora, S. 2015. The youngest ctenocystoids from the Upper Ordovician of the United Kingdom and the evolution of the bilateral body plan in echinoderms. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 60 (1): 39-48.
Ebbestad, J. O. R., Fryda J., Wagner P. J., Horny R. J., Isakar M., Stewart, S., Percival I. G., Bertero V., Rohr D. M., Peel J. S., Blodgett, R. B. & Hogstrom, A. E. S. 2013. Biogeography of Ordovician and Silurian gastropods, monoplacophorans and mimospirids. In: Harper, D. A. T. & Servais, T. (eds) Early Palaeozoic Biogeography and Palaeogeography. Geological Society, London, Memoirs, 38: 199–220.
Dunlop, J.A., Ross, A.J. & Stewart, S.E. 2013. The Ellismuir fossil arachnid - the only known Scottish Carboniferous trigonotarbid. Scottish Journal of Geology 49 (1): 9-14.
Stewart, Sarah E. 2012. Distribution and palaeolecology of Ordovician bivalves and gastropods from Girvan, SW Scotland. Earth and Environmentalist Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 102: 145-158.
Harper, D.A.T. & Stewart, S.E. 2008. Brachiopod biofacies in the Barr and Ardmillan groups, Girvan: Ordovician biodiversity trends on the edge of Laurentia, Earth and Environment Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 98: 281-289.
Geldart, E., Clarkson, E.N.K. and S.E. Stewart. 2007. Bivalves. In: Clarkson, E. N. K., Harper, D. A. T., Taylor, C. M. and Anderson, L. I. eds. Silurian Fossils of the Pentland Hills. Palaeontological Association Field Guides to Fossils 11: 86-99.
Stewart, S.E., Anderson, L.I. and E. N. K. Clarkson. 2007. Miscellanea. In: Clarkson, E. N. K., Harper, D. A. T., Taylor, C. M. and Anderson, L. I. eds. Silurian Fossils of the Pentland Hills. Palaeontological Association Field Guides to Fossils 11: 195-200.
For further publications see the National Museums Scotland Research Repository.
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