Dr Roper-Smith is both taxonomically and temporally agnostic, having tackled questions regarding the evolutionary histories of fungi, molluscs, brachiopods, jawed vertebrates, and more. The thread that connects these studies is his interest in finding new ways to disentangle the macroevolutionary patterns preserved by the fossil record from the artefacts of decay, fossilisation, sampling, and experimental design that distort them. Across different projects, he has attempted to do this in different ways. In some, he has developed new approaches for standardising empirical data, whilst in others he has used eco-evolutionary simulations to constrain the range of possible outcomes for different sources of bias. 

Currently, Dr Roper-Smith has three major streams of research that focus on:

1. The role of competitive displacement in the brachiopod-bivalve transition.
2. Diversification dynamics before, during, and after the Cambrian explosion.

3. General patterns in organismal morphological variety and the processes that shape them.

    

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