David Peterman
Papers
3
Total Citations
39
H-Index
2
About
David Peterman is a paleobiologist and roboticist whose work bridges deep time and cutting-edge engineering to understand the evolution of aquatic locomotion. His primary research areas include the functional morphology of extinct cephalopods, the biomechanics of shelled mollusks, and the development of biomimetic robots to test paleontological hypotheses. Peterman’s most significant contribution is his innovative use of soft-robotic platforms to “resurrect” extinct cephalopods—such as ammonoids and nautiloids—allowing him to experimentally investigate how shell shape influenced hydrodynamic stability, maneuverability, and ecological constraints. His 2022 paper on this topic has already garnered 24 citations, demonstrating its impact in both paleontology and robotics. In a related 2022 study (13 citations), he demonstrated that stability-maneuverability tradeoffs offered diverse functional opportunities to shelled cephalopods, providing a quantitative framework for interpreting morphological disparity in the fossil record. Most recently (2024), Peterman has extended his approach to study metachronal coordination in ctenophores, encoding spatiotemporal asymmetry in artificial cilia. His work is notable for its interdisciplinary creativity, merging paleobiology, fluid dynamics, and soft robotics to test evolutionary hypotheses that were previously untestable.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
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