The Palaeobiology of Two Crown Group Cnidarians: Haootia quadriformis and Mamsetia manunis gen. et sp. nov. from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada

My name is Daniel Pérez-Pinedo, a final-year PhD candidate at the Department of Earth Sciences at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. I completed my Bachelor's degree in Biology at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. Subsequently, I pursued a Master's in Ecology and Evolution at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the Netherlands. During my Master's thesis, I researched palynological records from sedimentary archives of the Eocene–Oligocene Transition (EOT) in the Central Myanmar Basin. The resulting thesis was awarded the East–West Seed Afstudeerprijs voor Plantenwetenschappen by the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities in the Netherlands (KHMW). Currently, in my PhD, my primary focus has been reconstructing the life positions of Ediacaran rangeomorphs and arboreomorphs from the Avalon Assemblage (ca. 564–574 Mya). My research has utilized diverse approaches, including taphonomic analysis, statistical and mathematical methods, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). During my PhD, I have been awarded the Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies award. I have collaborated closely with Discovery Global UNESCO Geopark in Newfoundland, Canada, developing public outreach initiatives. Additionally, I have served as a teaching assistant in the Faculty of Biology and have advised on Bachelor's and Master's theses. Beyond my PhD work, I have collaborated with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to design an outreach program for coral and sponge conservation.