David Unwin

I am broadly interested in all fossil vertebrates but have chosen to focus my research effort on a single group: pterosaurs – the extinct flying reptiles also known as pterodactyls.

My doctoral studies on Cretaceous pterosaur taxonomy and systematics were conducted under the supervision of the late Bev Halstead and I was awarded my PhD by Reading University in 1991.

Following several long term research visits to the USSR between 1988 and 1991, where I was hosted by the Kafedra Palaeontologie in Moscow State University in what was then the USSR, I took up a Royal Society Research Fellowship in the Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, in 1992.

During my seven years in Bristol, I developed a broad range of research projects on pterosaurs and other Mesozoic vertebrates, aided by a string of PhD students and several joint programs with colleagues in Russia, China and the US. I was also widely involved in teaching, particularly within palaeontology and helped to establish the highly successful MSc in Palaeobiology.

In 1998 I was appointed Curator of Fossil Reptiles and Birds in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. In addition to caring for the collections, which included the Berlin Archaeopteryx - arguably the most famous fossil in the world - I used my time in Berlin to further develop my research program on pterosaurs, a highlight of which was the publication in 2005, by Pi Press, of The Pterosaurs.

I also helped to develop an application for and subsequently led the German section of the EU funded museums-based project SYNTHESYS, and was the principal scientific officer responsible for the redevelopment of the Dinosaur Hall, which re-opened in 2007.

In 2006, I moved to the School of Museum Studies, Leicester, and in 2009, was appointed as Reader in Palaeobiology.