Vertebrate Preparation Lab Graduate student working in the vertebrate preparation lab. The blue tubes are part of a new airhandling system recently installed to improve health safety, designed to remove rock dust and noxious vapors from the lab. Ranjan, an undergraduate As a Ph.D. student, spent a large amount of time in the preparation lab. Here, he prepares the skull of a fossil whale. Many of the undergraduate students who work in the preparation lab often go on to earn a Ph.D. in paleontology. Jason Anderson and Jason Head, now well-known professional paleontologists, started out working in our lab.