Paula Mikkelsen grew up in Maine and received a B.S. degree in Biology from Bates College in 1976. Although initially interested in veterinary science, she caught the "shell bug" after moving to Florida and earned her Ph.D. from Florida Institute of Technology in 1994. Her dissertation was on the anatomy and evolution of "bubble snails," a small group of marine gastropods closely related to the shell-less nudibranchs. She remains one of the few experts in the world on these specialized animals. More recent studies have concentrated on another poorly understood molluscan class, the Bivalvia (oysters, clams, scallops, mussels, etc.), and she is an active participant in several large, federally funded grants focusing on the evolution of bivalves (see PEET and BivAToL). Her career has mainly been as a museum curator, heading collections at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (Ft. Pierce, Florida), Delaware Museum of Natural History (Wilmington), and the American Museum of Natural History (New York City). She has also been an adjunct faculty member at University of Delaware, Montclair State University, Queens College, Florida Institute of Technology, and New York University, and has mentored a number of Ph.D. and Masters students. She serves on editorial boards of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, American Malacological Bulletin, Malacologia, The Nautilus, and The Yuriyagai. She is a past president of the American Malacological Society and is a member of the Mollusc Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

Dr. Mikkelsen came to PRI in 2006. In her capacity as Associate Director for Science, she oversees collections, publications, the PRI research library, and science activities of PRI staff and students. She is also Director of Publications, serving as editor of PRI's two technical journals (Bulletins of American Paleontology and Palaeontographica Americana), its quarterly membership magazine American Paleontologist, and any other publications produced by PRI.

Dr. Mikkelsen's research program covers a relatively broad approach to systematics, phylogeny, and the evolution of diversity in marine mollusks, especially those from the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean. Mollusks are the second most species-rich animal group on Earth, with more than 120,000 living species, and form the largest phylum in the sea. Marine malacology is, consequently, an expansive systematic field. Reflecting her background and technical interests, Dr. Mikkelsen concentrates on morphological approaches to revisionary systematics, including dissection, histology, and light- and scanning electron microscopy. Research collaborations with colleagues who concentrate on complementary techniques, such as molecular systematics, have also been productive. As is often true of invertebrate systematists working with highly diverse, poorly understood taxa, the range of her research projects and professional goals is correspondingly broad. Her current research interests include:

(a) Long-term large-scale biodiversity analyses of molluscan faunas in the temperate-tropical western Atlantic, especially the Florida Keys, leading to an understanding of phylogenetic diversity through geographic diversity patterns. Her research program focuses on complete inventories, based on a solid taxonomic foundation, combining original collections with the legacy data contained in museum records and historic literature. These products have had immediate applications to the conservation and management of threatened near-shore marine communities, and include critical analyses of data sources routinely used in ecology-based biodiversity research.

(b) Rigorous systematic and phylogenetic studies on comparative functional morphology of a number of marine gastropod and bivalve groups, exploring conchological and anatomical characters within a total-evidence context. This is a particularly exciting academic field because many mollusks, even some of the most common, are known only from shell characters and few higher taxa have sufficient data to support their presumed monophyly. Associated theoretical discussions have included methodological alternatives in phylogenetic coding of derived reduced character states.

(c) Monographic revisionary treatments of selected taxa at various levels, describing new species when necessary and advancing our collective knowledge of species and clade diversity. Live-population studies within this context have lead to discoveries of structures and phenomena not otherwise detectable. Previous work concentrated on the shelled opisthobranch gastropods ("bubble snails") with their combinations of reduced shells and highly derived morphologies. Emphasis is currently placed the Bivalvia - a large, ecologically and economically important, yet systematically neglected molluscan class. See her current research at BivAToL.