Paul C. Sereno

I grew up in a suburb of Chicago and studied art and biology as an undergraduate. During a behind-the-scenes tour at the American Museum in New York, I saw paleontology as pure 'science adventure.’ Soon I trekked to far-flung collections in China and Mongolia, finding my first fossils at the famous Flaming Cliffs in the Gobi Desert. A few years later, I returned close to home, joining the faculty at the University of Chicago.

My field work began in the foothills of the Andes in Argentina, where I discovered the oldest dinosaurs including the dog-sized Eoraptor ("dawn raptor"). By the 1990s my expeditions shifted to the Sahara Desert to unearth Africa's lost world of dinosaurs. On challenging expeditions into the heart of the Sahara, I have brought to light a menagerie of new species including ponderous long-necked plant-eaters like Nigersaurus (“Niger reptile”), meat-eaters like Afrovenator (“African hunter”), and Rugops (“rough face”), and a bizarre huge-clawed fish-eater Suchomimus (“crocodile mimic”). Other discoveries include the world's largest crocodile, the 40-foot-long “SuperCroc” (Sarcosuchus), the triple-fanged, horned “BoarCroc” (Kaprosuchus), and Africa’s first pterosaur (winged reptile) with a 15-foot wingspan. Sereno’s latest work involves the 50-foot long skeleton of the largest predator ever, the semiaquatic dinosaur Spinosaurus. One of my greatest discoveries is a stunning archaeological site preserving hundreds of human burials and thousands of artifacts from a time before the pyramid. The ancient graveyard records the life and times in a “Green Sahara” that was home to 6-foot long perch, crocodiles and hippos.

Besides science papers, I have fun making documentaries and writing stories in National Geographic and books for kids. I also have launched two other projects to share the excitement and adventure of science, Scitopia Chicago, a teen and community science center in Chicago, and NigerHeritage, a plan to build novel museums on Africa in the country of Niger.