AURORA — The director of the Aurora Fossil Museum is preparing to travel to Europe next week to present her research at an international conference.

Cynthia Crane, who was hired as the new director of the museum this summer, will be leaving for Berlin, Germany on Monday to attend the 74^th annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, which will be held from Nov. 5 to Nov. 8. Normally held in North America, the international conference brings the brightest minds in vertebrate paleontology together to network, fellowship and share and view each other’s research, Crane said.

Crane said she will present a poster on her research, which centers around the fauna of her research site — Aurora. The work Crane will present is a component of her Master’s thesis that she researched at ECU, which focuses on the Cretaceous Period, the last period of the Mesozoic Era, she said. This will be the first time a representative from the Aurora Fossil Museum will attend and present research at the conference.

“It describes how the animals interacted with their environment and one another, like what fish and turtles were in the water — fresh, brackish, ocean water,” Crane said. “I did an interpretation of where all the fossils were derived from. You look at the science and describe the animals and paint an interpretation of how it was back then.

“What happens is when you do your research, you present it in a formal setting and a professional conference is a way to do that to show what you’re working on and see what others in different locations are doing, as well as looking at different ways to present information and maybe meet new prospective colleagues. It’s a networking event. It’ll be a lot of work—a lot of networking and presentation, but it’s a good avenue for me to present the Aurora Fossil Museum on a professional and international level. This will be the first time the museum will be in that realm.”

Crane, a member of the Society, said colleagues she has worked with in the past encouraged her to submit an abstract — summary of her research — to the meeting committee. She did so, and after being reviewed by five different committee members, who are familiar with her area of work, she recently received confirmation that she was accepted for this year’s conference.

“Each reviewer scores and then the scores are tallied, and if you make a certain score, you get in,” Crane said. “It’s a tedious process. But you don’t know if you win the lottery, unless you buy a ticket. I gave it a good try, and I got in. I’ve always wanted to see Germany. Even though I’ll only be there for four days, it’s an amazing opportunity. It’s a great opportunity for me and the Museum and Beaufort County.”

Crane’s support for her attending the conference has come through several entities, she said. Her co-author, who is at the University of Iowa, has provided funding for Crane’s trip; the Museum is supporting her; East Carolina University, her alma mater, has given her support in printing her poster and Potash has contributed to the tab — a tab that is otherwise priceless to Crane, who was at a loss for words when describing what the honor meant to her.

“It’s a group effort to mold all those entities together for me to go,” Crane said. “It’s wonderful support. All those entities will be on my poster. It means a huge, huge amount to me — it’s beyond words. Each time I am invited to do that on that level, to present my work, it’s a tremendous honor in that aspect to be welcomed and included in that setting.“