Peg received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Peg has been fascinated by fossils since she first read a book about dinosaurs when she was in kindergarten. Her research focuses on the evolution and extinction of cephalopods, the group that includes modern squid, octopus, and nautilus. Cephalopods have played important roles in ocean ecosystems for 500 million years, and over that time evolved into a wide variety of forms. Peg is working to understand why some cephalopods evolved much faster than others.