Lead Research Scientist, Eromanga Dinosaur Project
BSc (Hons 1A) University of Queensland
PhD University of New South Wales
Scott’s story is one of boyhood passions and dreams of studying dinosaurs and
palaeontology coming true, when he was appointed Assistant Curator of Palaeontology and Geology at the Queensland Museum at the age of 22, making him the youngest curator of any Australian museum.
Scott began his professional career in palaeontology in 1994 at the age of 16, when he published his first scientific paper, making him the youngest scientific author in Australia. Scott volunteered at the Queensland Museum for ten years during school and university, collecting numerous new localities for the museum, some of which are hailed as the most significant of their type in the last 30 years.
Scott graduated from the University of Queensland in 2000 with First Class Honours. In 2006 he was appointed Curator of Geosciences. Scott completed his PhD at the University of New South Wales, focusing on the evolution of Australia’s fauna, flora and climate over the last 4.5 million years in Queensland. He also researches, excavates and promotes Australia’s dinosaur fossil record. In 2002, Scott was awarded the title, ‘Young Australian of the Year’.
Recently, Scott has senior authored several children’s books on Australian dinosaurs and has been awarded the prestigious Geological Society of Australia’s Neville Steven’s Medal, for science communication in Earth Sciences. Scott has been acknowledged for his enthusiasm for science education in Australia by being made the youngest member of the Queensland Government’s Science State Taskforce.
Scott’s research projects include:
• The evolution of Australian rainforest faunas and their responses to climate change.
• Megafaunal extinction and responses of Quaternary vertebrates to climate change.
• Mesozoic faunas from Queensland, in particular the fossil faunas from the Winton
Formation.
• Evolution of Australopapuan agamid lizards.
• The fossil record of giant varanid lizards.
BSc (Hons) / PhD University of Queensland 2001
Postdoctoral Fellow, CSIRO Entomology Canberra 2001-2007
Christine Lambkin is a Curator of Entomology at the Queensland Museum and is responsible for the museum’s collections of Diptera (flies), Coleoptera (beetles), Orthoptera (grasshoppers), Hemiptera (bugs), Phasmatodea (stick insects), and a number of smaller insect orders.
Christine and Education Queensland staff, have developed a web-based learning resource for teachers and students, called the “Backyard Explorer Project”. This ecological study encourages students, between Years 6–9, to find out what native animals (especially insects) and habitats are found in their schoolyard, and to create a digital story about them. Supported by Education Queensland’s, e-learning vehicle, ‘The Learning Place’, the ‘Backyard Explorer Project’ has rolled out across Queensland, from the south-west to the tropical north.
Christine, Noel Starick and Arachnologist Robert Raven, have also instigated a biodiversity survey of the invertebrate fauna of south-west Queensland, called ‘Biodiversity West’. Malaise and pitfall traps, light sheets and sweep nets are being used to collect specimens from the: Culgoa Floodplains, Currawinya National Parks, Kooma Traditional Lands of Murra Murra and Bendee Downs Stations and the sustainably managed properties of Plevna Downs and Noonbah Station.
Find out more about Dr Lambkin
http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/organisation/staff/detail.asp?StaffName=Lambkin,Christine
Find out more about Dr Lambkin’s research
http://www.sasb.org.au/research/members/christine-lambkin/#flies
Project Palaeontologist, Eromanga Dinosaur Project
BSc (Hons) Geology (University of Wollongong)
PhD Geology/Palaeontology (James Cook University of North Queensland)
Growing up in a small mining town, Alex was encouraged towards a career in geology and completed a Bachelor of Science in Geology before obtaining his PhD in Geology and Palaeontology.
An interest in fossil reefs led Alex to North Queensland, to study the Devonian (410–354 million year-old) fossil reefs of Townsville’s hinterland. This gave him the opportunity to work on molluscs and stromatoporoids (extinct aquatic invertebrates thought to be classified among sponges). In 1992, Alex was appointed Senior Curator of Geosciences at the Queensland Museum, which introduced him to the fossil faunas and floras of Queensland’s Cretaceous Period.
Alex now works on the 380 million year old sequences of northern Australia as well as the 110-95 million year old rocks of Australia’s Artesian Basin. Alex has carried out extensive field work in Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales and has worked on the Devonian fossil deposits of China.
Alex is currently researching fossil tracks and trails, fossil marine reptiles, fossil reef systems, the origins of gastropod groups and the palaeontology of Cretaceous faunas in Queensland. He has been involved with the Eromanga Dinosaur Project since 2004, has worked as a full-time tutor at James Cook University, teaching students about stratigraphy, sedimentology and palaeontology and is the author of over 25 papers and books.
PhD University of Queensland, 1981
CSIRO Post-doctoral fellow, 1983-1984, New York and Canberra
Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History, New York
Editor: Mygalomorphae, ZOOTAXA
Robert has described more species (280) of trapdoor, tarantula and funnelweb spiders from Australia and overseas than any author, living or dead. He is actively working on various araneomorph groups including the toad-eating Racing Stripe Spider (Miturgidae) and the Australian tarantulas.
Robert is currently working with fellow Arachnologist Barbara Baehr and Entomologists Christine Lambkin and Noel Starick, to investigate the spiders of South-west Queensland, through the ‘Biodiversity West’ project.
www.qm.qld.gov.au/organisation/staff/detail.asp?staffName=Raven,Robert
Staatsexamen, University of Tübingen, Germany
PhD, University of Tübingen, Germany
Associate Editor: ZOOTAXA
(Nicodamidae, Cycloctenidae, Zodariidae)
Council member, International Society of Arachnology
Barbara obtained both her Staatsexamen and doctoral degree (1983) in zoology/ecology at the University of Tübingen, Germany. Between 1984 and 1998 she was a scientific associate and employee at the Zoologischen Staatssammlung Munich, Germany. From 1996-1998 Barbara also taught invertebrate zoology at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and conducted spider excursions for students. After several research stays in Australia (1994 Museum Perth, 1999 Museum Brisbane, Sydney, Perth), Barbara took over a research fellow position at the Queensland Museum, Brisbane in January 2000. At present, Barbara is a research fellow supported by a U.S. National Science Foundation, Planetary Biodiversity Inventory grant, on the taxonomy of world-wide Goblin spiders, family Oonopidae. Barbara has recently identified the Goblin spider on the property ‘Plevna Downs’, in south-west Queensland.
http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/organisation/staff/detail.asp?StaffName=Baehr,Barbara
Find out about Dr Baehr’s research
http://www.australasian-arachnology.org/arachnologists/baehr
President and Co-founder, Project Exploration http://www.projectexploration.org/
1979 B. S. Northern Illinois University (Biological Sciences)
1981 M. A. Columbia University (Geological Sciences)
1981 M. Phil. Columbia University (Geological Sciences)
1987 Ph. D. Columbia University (Geological Science
s)
In the 1990’s I began my long-time interest in Gondwana fossils, particularly those of Cretaceous age – a time when the southern continents were drifting apart. I began studying material from South America and led expeditions to Africa, which resulted in the discovery of many new exciting fossils. There was a revival of research on southern continents and I was keen to investigate unexplored areas of Australia of the same age. The geology of the Eromanga area was the right age, around 97 million years and promised a good chance of success. My visit to Southwest Queensland in 1998, (along with members of the Queensland Museum), was exciting and rewarding. Although no vertebrate fossils were found on that excursion, I had the opportunity to meet many locals, who were only too interested to hear my ideas of what could be hidden in the rocks under their feet. It was with great delight that I heard of the discovery of dinosaur fossils on Plevna Downs six years later and the continued success of their excavations.
These wonderful fossils are of international significance and add valuable information to the fossil record of dinosaurs in Australasia and the world. I sincerely endorse the work being undertaken by the Outback Gondwana Foundation to continue the discovery and study of this Australian fossil fauna.
The Eromanga Research Field Station and the long-term goal to establish a Regional Natural History Museum in Southwest Queensland will provide necessary facilities to safely house these large dinosaur bones and also facilitate other natural history discoveries and research.
Dr Mary E. White
Paleo-botanist
Author of several books about the prehistoric world and the evolution of the Australian continent and its biota.
Dr White is a specialist in prehistoric plants and the environment. She has taken the issue of preserving ancient native rainforest personally and now runs Falls Forest Retreat. This retreat is situated in a protected rainforest on the mid north coast of New South Wales. This rainforest is remarkably similar to the vegetation of 45 million years ago when Australia was part of Gondwana.
Dr White has support the Outback Gondwana Foundations mission and has granted permission for the website to use of several of her maps sourced from her books.