FY25_ImpactReport_Digi_081826 - Flipbook - Page 14
NATIONAL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION
Grant
“This project isn’t just a software
update — it’s about making half
a billion years of Earth’s biological
history more data-rich, useful,
and accessible to everyone,
from researchers studying mass
extinctions to a kid who just
found their first fossil.”
— Dori Contreras, Ph.D.
Director of Paleontology
and Curator of Paleobotany
The Perot Museum is helping to spearhead
a significant technological enhancement to one of
the most important online resources for paleontology.
A new collaborative grant from the National Science
Foundation, totaling approximately $1.5 million across
five partner institutions, is funding a complete rebuild
of the Paleobiology Database — the world’s most widely
used digital record of fossil life on Earth. The Perot
Museum’s share of the award is almost $250,000 over
three years (September 2025–August 2028).
Director of Paleontology and Curator of Paleobotany
Dr. Dori Contreras serves as the principal investigator
for the Museum’s portion of the grant. She brings
firsthand expertise as a co-creator of the Integrative
Paleobotany Portal (PBot), a pioneering tool for fossil
plant data that will now be integrated with the larger
database. The resulting system, dubbed PBDB 2.0,
will replace infrastructure dating to the late 1990s.
This modern platform will include new features such
as specimen information with linked images, flexible
tools for classifying hard-to-identify fossils, and
a built-in research workbench that helps scientists
manage projects and ultimately make their new data
available to the broader public.
The geologic time scale. Each color marks a period in Earth’s history and corresponds to the fossil localities mapped above.
MULLUSCA 35%
BRACHIOPODA 14%
14 | PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE
FORAMINIFERA 11%
ARTHROPODA 9%
MAMMALIA 8%
