Thais R. Pansani

Photo of Thais smiling at the camera. She has dark hair and is wearing a grey sweater and a dark red overcoat. She is standing in front of a museum display of a skeleton of giant fossil ground sloth.

Thais Pansani is a Brazilian paleontologist, who received her PhD in Ecology in Brazil in 2023. She’s currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Human Origins Program of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. She’s mainly interested in paleoecology, zooarchaeology, taphonomy, and bone surface modifications. Her main research questions are about human interaction with the Pleistocene megafauna in the Americas and the peopling of the Americas. She explores the potential of combining diverse methodologies to answer paleontological and zooarchaeological questions, such as experimental taphonomy, isotopes, and state-of-the-art techniques, such as photoluminescence and synchrotron-based techniques.

Pansani TR, Pobiner B, Gueriau P, Thoury M, Tafforeau P, Baranger E, Vialou AV, Vialou, D, McSparron C, Castro MC, Dantas MAT, Bertrand L, Pacheco MLAF. 2023. Evidence of artefacts made of giant sloth bones in central Brazil around the last glacial maximum. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 290: 20230316.

Pansani TR, Dantas MAT, Asevedo L, Cherkinsky A, Vialou D, Vialou AV, Pacheco MLAF. 2023. Radiocarbon dating and isotopic paleoecology of Glossotherium phoenesis from the Late Pleistocene of the Santa Elina rock shelter, Central Brazil. Journal of Quaternary Science 38.

Dantas MAT, Bernandes C, Asevedo L, Pansani TR, França LM, Aragão WS, Santos FS, Cravo E, Ximenes C. 2021. Isotopic palaeoecology (δ13C) of three faunivores from Late Pleistocene of the Brazilian intertropical region. Historical Biology 34, 507-514.

Asevedo L, Pansani TR, Cordeiro VM, Silva-Caminha SAF, Paixão JS, Cozzuol MA, Dantas MAT. 2021. Diversity of Pleistocene megamammals from southern Amazon, Mato Grosso state, Brazil. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 112, 103552.

Pansani TR, Muniz FP, Cherkinsky A, Pacheco MLAF, Dantas MAT. 2019. Isotopic paleoecology (δ13C, δ18O) of Late Quaternary megafauna from Mato Grosso do Sul and Bahia states, Brazil. Quaternary Science Reviews 221, 105864.

Pansani TR, Oliveira AM, Pacheco MLAF. 2016. Nova ocorrência de megafauna pleistocênica em Mato Grosso do Sul. Revista do Instituto Geológico 37(2), 73-85.