Current areas of research include:
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Lamnid Shark Study
Discovery Channel Megatooth Work
Fossil Studies in Tanzania & Madagascar

I am currently investigating various aspects of the fossil record and evolution of lamnid sharks, the family that includes living Great Whites and Makos, and their giant fossil relatives.
Projects include:

Describing the skeletal anatomy of Great White Sharks in an evolutionary and functional context;
Fossil of rayfin fish
fossil teeth
Studying spectacularly well-preserved fossil lamnids from the Oligocene of New Zealand;

Looking at developmental changes in the teeth of non-fossil sharks in terms of the implications these changes have for studies on fossil sharks based on isolated teeth;

Examining vertebral centra of both fossil and extant sharks from both a phylogenetic and functional perspective.

Discovery Channel Work

The high level of public interest in giant sharks has led to my involvement in several TV documentaries, including the recent ‘Sharks 3D’ which was shown as part of the Discovery Channel’s ‘Shark Week.’

(View scenes from Shark Week programs below... I'm in the red shirt.)

baiting sharks with decoys, meat
great white, megatooth jaws
discussion clip from program
shark!

Baiting sharks
Megatooth & GW shark jaws
Tooth comparison on the boat
Great White Shark
Fossil Studies in Tanzania & Madagascar

My principal current research involves studying Cretaceous-age vertebrates from the remote Mbeya Region of southwestern Tanzania. 

I initiated this project, and recently finished a second very successful season of field work there (supported by the National Geographic Society) with my main collaborator Patrick O'Connor (Ohio University) and also Nancy Stevens (Ohio University,) Eric Roberts (University of Utah) and several Tanzanian colleagues.
This is a photo of the 2002 Tanzania field crew. Mike Gottfried seated, far right in blue.
Madagascar field crew

The focus of this project is to increase our knowledge of fossil vertebrates from the African Cretaceous (which are generally very poorly known) particularly centering on what they can tell us about how vertebrates diversified and spread over the Gondwanan (Southern Hemisphere) continents during this critical interval of geologic time. 

This effort grew out of my involvement with a large group of researchers, led by David Krause of Stony Brook University, working in Madagascar, where an incredibly rich late Cretaceous fauna has been recovered. 

I am also continuing to work on fossil fishes and sharks from Madagascar, and from Mali (in west Africa), and on fossil lamnid sharks (the group that includes Great Whites and their fossil relatives.) In early 2004 I will be returning "Down Under" for further research on fossil fishes from New Zealand with my colleague Ewan Fordyce at the University of Otago.