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Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan
 Dr. Chinsamy-Turan is
a paleontologist and professor based at the Zoology Department of the University of Cape Town. She is a global expert on
the microscopic structure of the bones of extinct and extant vertebrates.
Her undergraduate training and Ph.D. are from the University of the
Witwatersrand, and she has a University Higher Diploma in Education from
the University of Durban Westville (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal).
After her Ph.D. she spent two years as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia.
Dr. Chinsamy-Turan’s work has been recognized by several
highly acclaimed awards: for example, in 1995, she was awarded the National
Research Foundation’s President’s Award, and in 1997/1998 she
received the Royal Society of South Africa’s Meiring Naude Gold Medal
for Research Excellence. In 2003 she won the National Science and
Technology Forum Award for outstanding contributions to science engineering
and technology, and in 2005, she won the Distinguished Women Scientist
Award from the South African Department of Science and Technology, and the
South African Woman of the Year Award which acknowledges her contributions
to science both in terms of research and science communication.
Dr. Chinsamy-Turan has published extensively – both in
international scientific journals (including four publications in Nature) and in the popular press. She
is President of the Association of South African Women in Science and
Engineering, and has also served as the Director of Iziko Museums Natural
History Collections (which includes the South African Museum) where she was
able to actively pursue her interests in communicating science to the wider
community. Dr. Chinsamy-Turan is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of
South Africa and the University
of Cape Town. She is
the author of the first book devoted entirely to fossil bone
microstructure: The Microstructure of
Dinosaur Bone - Deciphering Biology Through Fine Scale Techniques
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005) which has been internationally
acclaimed. Her latest book, published in 2008, is entitled Famous Dinosaurs of Africa
and is specifically written to educate and excite children about the
fabulous African heritage of dinosaurs.
Matthew Lamanna (current Jurassic Foundation President)
 Dr. Lamanna is an
Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and the principal dinosaur
researcher at Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, and an Adjunct Assistant
Professor in the Department of Geology and Planetary Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
Originally
from the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York,
Matt received his Ph.D. from the University
of Pennsylvania in
2004. His research interests involve exploring the effects of large-scale
geographic and environmental changes on dinosaur evolution, distribution,
and diversity. Within the past five years, he has co-directed field
expeditions to central and southern Patagonia (Argentina),
Egypt, Australia, and China that have resulted in the
discovery of multiple new species of dinosaurs and other Cretaceous
vertebrates. Foremost among these finds is one of the largest land animals
ever discovered, a 95-million-year-old herbivorous dinosaur from Egypt
that Matt and his colleagues named Paralititan
stromeri. The discovery of Paralititan
received extensive national and international media coverage and was
documented in The Lost Dinosaurs of
Egypt, a film that aired on the A&E network in 2002. Matt also
consulted on and narrated The Science Channel’s documentary Rise of the Feathered Dragons that
chronicled his team’s recent discovery of exquisite new specimens of
the Early Cretaceous bird Gansus
yumenensis in northwestern China.
Matt served
as the principal scientific advisor to Carnegie Museum
of Natural History’s Dinosaurs
in Their Time exhibit renovation project. Apart from paleontology, he
enjoys playing and watching American football and irritating his neighbors
with his bass guitar.
Patrick O’Connor
 Dr. O’Connor is an Associate Professor of Anatomical Sciences
at Ohio University
in Athens, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University
in 2003, completing a project examining the evolution of postcranial
skeletal pneumaticity in avian and non-avian theropod dinosaurs. Pat has
conducted field research in North America and Afro-Arabia, the latter of
which includes ongoing projects in Tanzania,
Madagascar, Kenya, Zimbabwe,
and Egypt.
These field projects focus on characterizing Mesozoic terrestrial
vertebrate faunas, particularly Cretaceous-aged taxa (dinosaurs, birds, and
crocodyliforms) from sub-equatorial Africa and Madagascar. Pat’s general
research interests include (1) the evolution of birds, (2) the relationship
between osteological features and different soft-tissue systems (e.g.,
pulmonary, neurosensory) in living and extinct archosaurs, and (3) the
biogeographic history of terrestrial vertebrates on Gondwanan landmasses
during the latter half of the Mesozoic.
In addition to paleontology and
biology, Pat’s other interests include music, languages, travel, and
wildlife, all of which serve to fill pages of a passport.
David Varricchio
 Dr. Varricchio is an
Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State
University in Bozeman. His doctoral research examined
the taphonomy of dinosaur bonebeds in the Late Cretaceous of Montana and he
received his Ph.D. from Montana
State University
in 1995.
His research
continues to be largely field based and focused on the interface between
biologic and geologic processes. By blending sedimentological, taphonomic,
and anatomical data within a broader evolutionary context, this work
addresses a variety of questions on dinosaur paleobiology. Past and ongoing
research includes studies on the reproductive behavior of the theropod Troodon and its bearing on the
evolution of avian reproduction, tyrannosaur stomach contents, herding and
parenting behavior in a variety of dinosaurs, documenting modern taphonomic
processes within the Yellowstone River of Montana, and most recently,
demonstrating burrowing behavior in the dinosaur Oryctodromeus.
Current fieldwork includes localities in Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and China. Originally from eastern Pennsylvania, David enjoys hiking and bird watching
in and out of Montana.
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