Emily Rayfield is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 palaeontologist, who is currently a Lecturer of palaeobiology

Paleobiology

Paleobiology is a growing and comparatively new discipline which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology...

 in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is a public research university located in Bristol, United Kingdom. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876.The University is...

.

Her research primarily focuses on the functional anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

 of extinct vertebrates, especially dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s, using computational methods such as finite element analysis (FEA). In the landmark paper Rayfield et al. (2001), the skull

Skull

The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...

 of the theropod dinosaur Allosaurus

Allosaurus

Allosaurus is a genus of large theropod dinosaur that lived 155 to 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period . The name Allosaurus means "different lizard". It is derived from the Greek /allos and /sauros...

was analysed using FEA in order to quantitatively assess different feeding hyoptheses. This paper was the first use of FEA on a three-dimensional structure in palaeontology (in collaboration with CT

Computed tomography

X-ray computed tomography or Computer tomography , is a medical imaging method employing tomography created by computer processing...

 scanning), and spurred the current trend of CT-scanned skull FEA on feeding biomechanics in zoology and palaeontology.

In addition, she helped elucidate the cranial biomechanics of the noted carnivorous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus

Tyrannosaurus meaning "tyrant," and sauros meaning "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex , commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other...

using two-dimensional FEA. This study was expanded upon in a comparative finite element analysis of 2D theropod skulls (namely Allosaurus Coelophysis

Coelophysis

Coelophysis , meaning "hollow form" in reference to its hollow bones , is one of the earliest known genera of dinosaur...

and Tyrannosaurus), in order to quantitately compare cranial biomechanics.