Tina Kuang

Tina completed her BSc in Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. During her time at Berkeley, she studied Fox squirrel jumping and landing biomechanics and worked on bio-inspired robotics in Prof. Robert Full’s Lab. She also worked in Prof. Jack Tseng’s lab where she developed a strong interest in functional morphology. Tina joined the Pierce Lab to explore the origin of arboreality in mammals. Taking advantage of the diverse locomotor groups in the Sciuridae family, she is combining an experimental and quantitative approach to elucidate variations in ankle bone morphology and joint range of motion. A key aspect of her research is the use of XROMM to visualize the osteological mechanisms enabling hindfoot reversal in highly arboreal animals. Her overarching goal is to uncover the morphological and biomechanical factors that influenced the shift from ground to tree habitats across metatherian and eutherian orders. Utilizing the XROMM data, she is interested in eventually developing musculoskeletal models that depict characteristic arboreal movements.