Smithsonian Institution Dinosaur Museum/DINOSAUR_MUSEUM.ISO/pc/mswin/archives/who.txt

Text File | 1994-04-04 | 23KB | 523 lines

Andrews, Roy Chapman:  January 26, 1884 -
March 11, 1960.  He was the real Indiana Jones.
His fame derives from his leadership of a series of
expeditions to Mongolia (1921-1930) by the
American Museum of Natural History, and his
popular books about his explorations of "Lost
Worlds."  In 1935 he succeeded Henry Fairfield
Osborn as director of the American Museum of
Natural History.  He served in that capacity until
1942, when he retired to write a series of very
popular books.

Brown, Barnum:  February 12, 1873 - February 5,
1963.  One of the greatest field paleontologists of
all time to collect dinosaurs.  The Cretaceous Hall of
dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural
History is a tribute to his remarkable ability.
Brown worked at the museum for more than sixty
years.  It was his success along the Red Deer River
in Alberta that started the famous "Dinosaur Rush"
of 1911-1916.

Buckland, William:  March 12, 1784 - August 15,
1856.  Buckland was born in Devonshire, England.
He was not only a Dean at Oxford University, but
also an ordained minister, eventually becoming Dean
of Westminster Abbey.  He spent much of his life
trying to reconcile the word of the Bible with
geological phenomena.  Along with some other
geologists, Buckland proposed the idea that the
biblical Deluge in the Book of Genesis could explain
most of the fossils found in the rocks.  His major
contribution to paleontology was to give the first
published name to a dinosaur, Megalosaurus.

Colbert, Edwin Harris:  September 28, 1905 -
present.  "Mr. Dinosaur" to two generations of
Americans.  For a quarter century, his popular
books were the only access for many people to the
"insiders" world of dinosaurs.  His major
contribution to paleontology is the excavation of the
Ghost Ranch quarry in New Mexico to collect a large
assemblage of Coelophysis.  The skeletons were
discovered in 1947 by his research assistant.  In
1943 Colbert became Curator of Vertebrate
Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural
History, and later was chairman of the department.

Cope, Edward Drinker:  July 28, 1840 - April 12,
1897.  Born and raised in Philadelphia.  He then
toured Europe during the Civil War, where he
visited the large museums, studied their
collections, and befriended many of the leading
scientists.  In 1870 he began describing fossils
collected from the western territories.  Cope's
career was guided by his mentor, Joseph Leidy.
During the seventies Cope's fierce rivalry with O.
C. Marsh escalated when they each found vast
numbers of dinosaur bones in the Late Jurassic
rocks of Colorado and Wyoming.

Currie, Philip:  March 13 - present.  Dr. Currie
attained his Ph.D. in 1981 from McGill University in
Canada.  From 1976 through 1981 he was on the
staff of the Provincial Museum and Archives of
Alberta.  In 1981 he joined the newly built Tyrell
Museum of Palaeontology near Drumheller, Alberta,
where he is in charge of research on dinosaurs.
From 1986 until 1990 Currie co-led the joint Sino-
Canadian Dinosaur expeditions, and he is one of the
leading scientists doing research on the paleobiology
of theropods.

Cuvier, Georges Léopold Chrêtien Frédéric
Dagobert:  August 23, 1789 - March 13, 1832.
Cuvier was the father of both Comparative
Anatomy and Vertebrate Paleontology.  In 1785 he
joined the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and
worked with anatomist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire.  In 1812, Cuvier made the "blasphemous"
idea of extinction acceptable. Shortly after Gideon
Mantell collected his specimen of Iguanodon, and
before he knew what it was, Mantell sent it to Paris
with Charles Lyell to show to Cuvier, who thought
it was the upper incisor of a rhinoceros!

Dollo, Louis Antoine Marie Joseph:  December 7,
1857 - April 19, 1931.  In 1877 Dollo graduated in
Mining Engineering from the University of Lille.
Dollo's interest in fossils inspired him to become a
self-taught paleontologist, and in 1882 he joined the
staff at the Museum of the Royal Belgian Institute of
Natural Sciences in Brussels - in 1909 he was
appointed a professor at the University of Brussels.
Dollo's chief claim to fame lies with his many
papers on the anatomy of Iguanodon, which he had
based on a series of skeletons excavated from a
coal mine 1056 feet under the village of Bernissart.

Dong, Zhiming.  1937 - present:  Chief dinosaur
paleontologist of the People's Republic of China, on
the staff of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology
and Paleoanthropology at the Academia Sinica in
Beijing.  His first supervisor there was C. C. Young,
founder of the Institute and father of vertebrate
paleontology in China.  Dong has collected in every
province of China, and his most important
discoveries were in the Zigong quarries of Sichuan
Province.  This locality is now one of the most
productive dinosaur beds in the world.

Douglass Earl:  October 28, 1862 - January 13,
1931.  Working for the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History, Douglass set out in 1909 to prospect for
dinosaur fossils in the Uinta Mountains of Utah.
After discovering  a prolific site near Jensen, Utah,
Douglass worked many years and endured numerous
hardships in collecting specimens for Carnegie.  It
was mainly through his efforts that this site was
designated Dinosaur National Monument.

Farlow, James O.:  February 7, 1951 - present.
Born and raised in Indiana, Farlow graduated with a
Bachelor's degree in Zoology from Indiana
University.  He then went to Yale University for a
doctorate where he studied not only paleontology,
but also ecology, herpetology, and marine biology.
Farlow's decision to become a paleontologist dates
back to his childhood when he saw the Walt disney
movie, "Fantasia."  His most important
contributions include theoretical models of dinosaur
paleoecology, and the thermoregulatory function of
the plates on Stegosaurus.

Forster, Catherine A.:  June 8, 1956 - present.
Forster obtained her Ph.D. from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1990.  Prior to that she was
instrumental in creating the new Dinosaur Hall at
the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
Forster is most noted for her study of the
systematics and diversity of ceratopsians, field
work in Triassic rocks of Argentina, the osteology
of Tenontosaurus, and cladistic studies in
ornithischians.

Galton, Peter M.:  March 14, 1942 - present.  Born
and raised in London, Peter Galton earned his Ph.D.
by studying Hypsilophodon.  In 1967 he joined the
staff at Yale University, then moved to the
University of Bridgeport in 1970.  Galton has named
more than 10 dinosaurs, including Othneilia; and
together with Hans-Dieter Sues, the
pachycephalosaurs Stygimoloch and Ornatotholus.
His 1970 paper on running in hadrosaurs is a
landmark in functional morphology.

Gilmore, Charles Whitney:  March 11, 1874 -
September 27, 1945.  Gilmore is one of the most
underrated vertebrate paleontologists of this
century.  His monographs on Apatosaurus,
Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Camptosaurus are of
outstanding quality.  Gilmore began his career at the
Smithsonian in 1904 as a preparator of vertebrate
fossils, and ended in 1940 as a full curator, a
position he had held since 1923, even though he
never obtained a doctorate.  While at the
Smithsonian, he either led or participated in sixteen
major fossil collecting expeditions.

Glut, Donald F.:  February 19, 1944 - present.  Glut
wrote the first "Dinosaur Dictionary" in 1972,
"The Dinosaur Scrapbook" in 1980, and many books
co-authored with others, most recently, "Dinosaur
Encyclopedia," with Don Lessem in 1993.  He is the
world's leading authority on dinosaurs in film.

Granger, Walter: November 7, 1872 - September
6, 1941.  (In the night.)  A geologist at the
American Museum of Natural History who is best
known for his leadership and mapping during the
Mongolian expeditions of 1921-1930.  It was this
series of expeditions that produced the first
skeletons of Protoceratops, Pinacosaurus,
Velociraptor, Oviraptor, Saurornithoides,
Bactrosaurus, and Gilmoreosaurus.
Gurche, John:  October 30, 1951 - present.  Gurche
is one of the most talented artists of paleontological
restorations of this century.  His most important
works are the "Tower of Time" in the Smithsonian
Institution; the cover on the book, "The Dinosaur
Heresies;"  the painting of Barosaurus for the
American Museum of Natural History;  illustrations
for the book, "The Rise of Life;" and the dinosaur
paintings in the issue of National Geographic for
January, 1993.  His work has a "kodachrome-like"
photographic quality.  Gurche has never had an art
course.

Harryhausen, Raymond: June 19, 1920 - Present.
Harryhausen was a protege of Willis O'Brien and
went on to make first-rate animation sequences of
dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles in such
classics of film as "Valley of the Gwangi," "The
Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," and "One Million
B.C."
Hatcher, John Bell:  October 11, 1861 - July 3,
1904.  Hatcher was one of the greatest vertebrate
paleontologists of all time.  From 1883 until 1893
he was a collector for O. C. Marsh of Yale
University.  Hatcher's expedition to the Lance Creek
area of Wyoming led to the discovery from 1889-
1891 of over thirty skulls of Triceratops.  From
1893 until 1900 he was Curator of Vertebrate
Paleontology at Princeton University.  From 1900
until his untimely death at age 43 of typhoid fever,
Hatcher was a curator at Pittsburgh's Carnegie
Museum of Natural History.

Hawkins, Benjamin Waterhouse:  February 8, 1807
- 1889 (in obscurity).  This well-known sculptor
and painter of the nineteenth century made the
dinosaurs at the Crystal Palace in Sydenham,
England, and the Academy of Natural Sciences,
Philadelphia.  Many of his paintings are still on
display in the Geology Building at Princeton
University.

Horner, John R.:  1946 - present.  Curator at the
Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana.
Horner is well-known for his joint discovery with
Robert Makela of nesting colonies of Maiasuara; his
discovery of the first-known dinosaur embryo; his
theories on dinosaur parenting; and his research
into dinosaur growth history and metabolisism
based on histological studies of bone.

Janensch, Werner:  November 10, 1878 - October
29, 1969.  Janensch was a paleontologist on the
staff of the Museum of Natural History at Humboldt
University in Berlin, Germany.  He gained fame as
the scientist who led many of the expeditions to
Tendaguru, east Africa, and described the dinosaurs
the museum collected there.  The only mounted
specimen of Brachiosaurus in the world is due to his
efforts.
Knight, Charles R.  October 21, 1874 - April 15,
1953.  Born and raised in New York City, Knight is
a legendary artist, the first to paint realistic
restorations of dinosaurs.  He also was one of the
rare Natural history artists who dissected animals
so that his restorations were anatomically
accurate.  In 1935 he published a classic book,
"Before the Dawn of History," and his 1946 book,
"Life through the Ages," became a valuable
collector's item.  Knight's works are on display in
many museums - his art influenced several
generations of scientists.

Lambe, Lawrence M.:  August 27, 1863 - March
12, 1919.  Lambe was appointed vertebrate
paleontologist on the Geological Survey of Canada in
1904.  He opened the eyes of the paleontological
world to the significance of the dinosaur-bearing
sediments along the Red Deer River in Alberta,
Canada.  Lambe's most notable works include the
description and naming of some of those dinosaurs
collected by the Sternberg family.  Well-known
dinosaurs among the ones he named are
Styracosaurus; Centrosaurus; Chasmosaurus; and
Gorgosaurus, now known as Albertosaurus.

Leidy, Joseph T.:  September 9, 1923 - April 10,
1891.  Leidy was the Father of American
Vertebrate Paleontology, and was the first to
describe the American dinosaurs in 1856.  He was
not only a professor of anatomy at the University
of Pennsylvania, but also the curator of
paleontology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia.  It was Leidy's description of
Hadrosaurus in 1858 which proved that some
dinosaurs walked erect and were bipedal.  In his
life, Leidy published about 600 scientific works.

Lull, Richard Swann:  November 6, 1867 - April
22, 1957.  Lull graduated from Columbia University
under the supervision of H. F. Osborn.  He came to
Yale University in 1906, where he had one of the
most prolific careers in dinosaur paleontology, in
spite of being partially handicapped.  Three major
publications are "Triassic Life in the Connecticut
Valley,"  "A Revision of the Ceratopsia or Horned
Dinosaurs," and "The Hadrosaurian Dinosaurs of
North America."  Lull's textbook, "Organic
Evolution," was required reading at the college
level for more than a generation.

Madsen, James:  July 28, 1932 - present.  Raised
and educated in Utah, Jim Madsen was always
interested in dinosaurs.  At the University of Utah
he began his tutelage under William Stokes.  Madsen
specialized in the rocks of the Morrison Formation
(latest Jurassic), and is credited with the
discoveries of Marshosaurus, Stokesosaurus, and
the first-known Jurassic ankylosaurs.

Mantell, Gideon Algernon:  February 3, 1790 -
November 10, 1852.  Mantell published the second
dinosaur to be named, Iguanodon, in 1825.  He made
his living as a family doctor in the country, starting
in 1818, but devoted most of his time to collecting
fossils from Tilgate Forest in Sussex, England.
Legend says it was she who found the tooth of
Iguanodon on August 20, 1820, while she waited
outside as Dr. Mantell made a house call, but so far
there is no documented confirmation of this report.
Mantell's other major work is "Models of
Creation," published in 1844.

Marsh, Othniel Charles:  October 29, 1831 - March
18, 1899.  Marsh founded the Peabody Museum of
Natural History at Yale University and became the
first person in the United States to be hired as a
professional vertebrate paleontologist by a
university.  He named some of the best-known
dinosaurs, such as Allosaurus, Apatosaurus,
Diplodocus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and
Camptosaurus.  Marsh is also remembered as
Edward Drinker Cope's formidable rival in the race
for naming dinosaurs.

McIntosh, John Stanton:  January 6, 1923 -
present.  McIntosh received his Ph.D. in Physics
from Yale University in 1952.  His interest in
dinosaurs began as a child, but when in college he
was told to get a degree in a "real" field in order to
get a job.  McIntosh might have become the
successor to Barnum Brown at the American
Museum of Natural History if he had stayed in
paleontology.  No matter, McIntosh became the
world's leading authority on sauropods.  He is also
the person who finally put the right head on
Apatosaurus in 1979.

O'Brien, Willis Harold:  March 2, 1886 - November
8, 1962.  O'Brien gave the movie screen its first
realistic dinosaurs.  In 1914 he invented the art of
stop-motion photography for Hollywood.  O'Brien
moved clay mannequins a fraction of an inch at a
time, recording each increment of motion with one
frame of motion-picture film.  When the film was
projected, the viewer's vision saw the mannequins
move as live animals on the screen.  His most
famous film is the legendary classic, the 1933
version of "King Kong."
Osborn, Henry Fairfield:  August 8, 1857 -
November 6, 1935.  Osborn founded the Department
of Vertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum
of Natural History in New York City, and made it
THE MUSEUM in the United States.  His major
contributions to dinosaurs were (1) the naming of
Tyrannosaurus rex on October 5, 1905 (found by
Barnum Brown); and (2) organizing the Central
Asiatic Expeditions to Mongolia, led by Roy
Chapman Andrews.

Ostrom, John Harold:  February 18, 1928 -
present.  Ostrom graduated with a Ph.D. from
Columbia University on the cranial crests of
hadrosaurian dinosaurs under the tutelage of Edwin
Colbert.  In 1971 he joined the faculty of Yale
University.  Ostrom's most famous discovery was
the sickle-clawed dinosaur, Deinonychus.  He is also
acknowledged for reintroducing the concepts that
dinosaurs were "warm-blooded," and that birds are
the direct descendants of dinosaurs.

Owen, Sir Richard:  July 20, 1804 - December 18,
1892.  Owen coined the word, "dinosaur," in a
speech on August 2, 1841.  His early works on
fossil reptiles made him the pre-eminent vertebrate
paleontologist in the world.  For a short time he
studied under Cuvier in Paris.  In 1856, Owen began
his career at the British Museum, an institution he
helped to found.  His personal lectures earned him
the favor of Queen Victoria, a relationship that
garnered him a house and a government pension.
His last years were spent in a losing argument
against "Darwinism."

Riggs, Elmer S.:  January 23, 1859 - March 25,
1963.  Riggs gained fame as the man who named
Brachiosaurus.  In 1898 he joined the Field Museum
of Natural History in Chicago, where he spent his
entire career until he retired in 1963.  Riggs was
the first proponent of sauropods being fully erect
terrestrial animals, although his theory was not
accepted for almost fifty years.  He also stated
(1902) that Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus were
the same animal, but it was almost 80 years before
his concept was fully accepted.

Seeley, Henry Govier:  February 18, 1839 -
January 8, 1909.  Seeley was educated at
Cambridge University by Adam Sedgewick, a
legendary geologist, who coincidentally was
Darwin's teacher, too.  Seeley's chief claims to
fame are the mammal-like reptiles he collected in
the Karoo Basin of South Africa, and his division of
the Dinosauria into two great orders, the Saurischia
and Ornithischia.  Seeley was the first to state that
(1) pterosaurs were "warm-blooded" and (2) they
had relatively larger brains than most other
reptiles.

Sibbick, John:  May 15, 1949 - Present.  Sibbick is
a British artist whose paintings of dinosaurs are
well known for their exceptional quality.  He trained
at the Guildford Art School, Surrey, where he
studied both graphic design and illustration.
Perhaps his best-known work is in David Norman's
book, "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs,"
for which Sibbick did all the illustrations.

Sternberg, Charles Hazelius:  June 15, 1850 - July
21, 1943.  Sternberg was one of the foremost field
paleontologists of all time, and the father of three
other prodigious collectors:  George F., Charles M.,
and Levi.  Sternberg collected for E. D. Cope during
1876-1879, 1894, and 1896-1897. His most
renowned discovery is the mummified duck-billed
dinosaur now at the American Museum of Natural
History.  A tragic loss in 1916 was a shipment of
two excellent duckbills to the British Museum on a
ship that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-
boat.

Sternberg, Charles Mortram:  September 18, 1885
- September 8, 1981.  He was the son of Charles
Hazelius Sternberg and brother of George and Levi,
together the famous Sternberg Clan.  Initially
Charles hated field work because it was so hard,
but soon after finding his own dinosaurs he became
enraptured with dinosaur paleontology.  Most of his
best-known finds were ceratopsian dinosaurs.  His
entire scientific career was with the National
Museum of Canada, and he was one of the founders
of Dinosaur Provincial Park.  Charles M. Sternberg
published more that 45 scientific papers.

Williston, Samuel Wendell:  July 10, 1852 - August
30, 1918.  Williston collected for O. C. Marsh from
1875 until 1890, and also served him as a field
leader of the great Marsh dinosaur expeditions in
the western states.  In 1902 Williston became a
professor at the University of Chicago, where he
began to specialize on the reptiles of the Permian
System.  His most important scientific work was
"The Osteology of the Reptiles."  Williston died
during the great worldwide flu epidemic of 1918.
His biography, "Fossils and Flies," is an excellent
history of vertebrate paleontology.

Zallinger, Rudolph:  November 12, 1919 - present.
Zallinger's 110-foot mural, "The Age of Reptiles,"
is one of the world's best-known paintings of
dinosaurs.  It is on the wall of the Dinosaur Hall of
the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale
University.  The mural was completed June 6,
1947, and was the cover of Time Magazine.
Zallinger received a Pulitzer Award for this work in
1949.

Dodson, Peter:  August 20, 1946 - present.  Dodson
earned his doctorate under dinosaur specialist John
Ostrom at Yale University.  Dr. Dodson is most
noted for his studies of dinosaur burial at Dinosaur
Provincial Park in Alberta, his skull studies of
duckbills and protoceratopsians, and as one of the
editors of the invaluable text, “The Dinosauria.”

Sereno, Paul:  October 11, 1957 - present.
Sereno’s Ph.D. is from Columbia University, where
he did his dissertation on the evolutionary
relationships of Psittacosaurus in Asia.  He is an
Associate Professor in the Department of
Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University
of Chicago, and is best known for his field work in
Argentina; his cladistic re-classification of the
dinosaurs; and Eoraptor, the earliest-known
dinosaur, which he co-discovered with Fernando
Novas in 1992.

Hotton, Nicholas, III:  January 28, 1921 - present.
Hotton was Curator of Fossil Amphibians and
Reptiles at the National Museum of Natural History,
Smithsonian Institution, from 1959 through 1993.
Although best-known as a specialist in mammal-like
reptiles of the Permo-Triassic, his dinosaur
contributions include (1) the hypothesis of dinosaur
migrations and (2) the idea that dinosaurs out-
competed mammals in the Triassic because reptiles
were better adapted to arid condtions.

Weishampel, David:  November 16, 1952 - present.
Weishampel obtained his Ph.D. from the University
of Pennsylvania under Peter Dodson, and is noted
for his research on how ornithopods cropped their
food, the study of hadrosaur vocalizations, and as
senior editor of the invaluable text, “The
Dinosauria.”

Sues, Hans-Dieter:  January 13, 1956 - present.
Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1984, his contributions
to dinosaurian paleontology have been in the areas
of phylogeny, anatomy, and early Mesozoic
extinction events.  Currently an Associate Curator
in the Department of Vertebrate Zoology at the
Royal Ontario Museum, and Associate Professor of
Zoology with the University of Toronto, he is doing
research on:  a new theropod from Alberta;
Maiasaura (with J. R. Horner); and dinosaurs from
the Lower Cretaceous of northern Niger as part of a
research team headed by P. C. Sereno.