A paleontology journey can start at any time. Erika Tandy’s began in 1974 with a playset featuring 29 prehistoric animals in classic 1970s lead-infused plastic. This “exposure” led to a lifelong obsession with dead things, particularly dinosaurs and other ancient reptiles. An artistic and curious child, Erika spent hours drawing and collecting random expired creatures, much to her mother’s discomfort. Skeletons held great beauty and led to an education focused around science and art. After graduating college with a BFA in Illustration, she worked for a research hospital, producing many wound healing illustrations and learning about medicine on the fly.

In 2000, a side quest took her into corporate tech, a field that couldn’t be more different than medical research. However, the paychecks supported many international adventures, and in each one Erika made sure to visit the city’s natural history museum. Thus, her beloved bones followed her wherever she went.

In 2020, Erika decided it was time to fully resume her childhood journey and return to paleontology. Since then, she’s been on numerous digs, and has put in over 1500 volunteer hours at several institutions in the central Texas area. At the two UT Austin Paleontology labs, she helps curate and assist with research, make molds and casts, and repairs and conserves fossils. She recently presented her first poster on identifying artiodactyl metapodials from two unexplored caves and is currently painting a cast of the Friesenhahn saber cat, Homotherium serum.