I became interested in the fossil record generally, and fishes specifically, from growing up in the Cleveland area. Here the rocks contain remarkable fossils of early fishes dating to ~360 million years ago. I was fascinated by these strange animals as a kid, and somehow that interest persisted.
The most exciting thing is our ability to automate the time-consuming process of collecting trait data from specimens. This often represents a substantial bottleneck for projects, consuming valuable person hours. Automated data collection allows us to build substantially larger data sets than those already available, providing the opportunity to tackle questions at a scale not possible before.