My research program while at the University was devoted to neuroanatomical studies of marine invertebrate larvae using serial EM reconstruction as a principal method. A number of phyla were examined and much of the data, in the form of negatives and selected photos, is lodged in the University Archives [see http://scaa.usask.ca/gallery/lacalli]. My particular focus, beginning in 1992, was a reconstruction of the anterior, brain-like region of the nerve cord of the invertebrate chordate Branchiostoma (amphioxus), to determine its suitablility as a model for the ancestral vertebrate brain. This was the most important of the projects completed in my lab during my tenure at the University of Saskatchewan, and resulted in a number of publications.

My zoological interests have always been broadly comparative and evolutionary. Since retiring, I've had the opportunity to address more general issues in my writing, relating to metazoan body plan, dorsoventral inversion, and the means by which the chordate brain and spiral cord were assembled from a set of presumably less centralized presursors. Much remains to be done on these topics.

I have also, over many years, had an interest in theoretical aspects of developmental pattern formation, with a focus on mechanisms that produce pattern by a combination of reactions and diffusional spread, so-called Turing models. A survey of recent work in this field can be found in The Shaping of Life (Cambridge Press, 2010; see Documents & Links) by Lionel Harrison, a friend and close colleague.