Paul Barrett

Paul M. Barrett is an UKRI Individual Merit Researcher and Head of Science Engagement at the Natural History Museum, London. Prior to this, he held appointments at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. An internationally recognized expert on the evolution and biology of dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles, he has published almost 250 scientific papers and books. He has worked on museum collections around the world and conducted fieldwork in China, the UK, USA, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Over the course of his career, Paul has trained and mentored dozens of graduate students and postdocs. He has received several professional awards, including the President’s Medal of the Palaeontological Association and the Bicentennial Medal of the Linnean Society. In addition to scientific work, Paul is an enthusiastic science communicator, via the NHM’s exhibitions and public programmes and the UK and international media. He is the author of 'National Geographic Dinosaurs', ‘Dippy: The Tale of a Museum Icon’, ‘Dinosaurs: How they Lived and Evolved’ and, most recently, ‘A History of Dinosaurs in 50 Fossils’.

Jasmina Weimann

I am an Assistant Professor and the PI of the PaLEO Lab in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, with a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. My lab at Hopkins challenges the paradigm of the ‘Molecular Gap’ between life, past and present, through conceptual and technological innovation enabling the experimental, empirical, and theoretical deduction of first principles that determine biological signal preservation across physical parameter spaces on Earth and other solar system bodies; we work to translate these insights into novel, integrative and agnostic biosignatures which can be applied to explore the foundational mechanisms driving the origin(s) and long-term evolution of life in response to environmental and ecosystem change! Previously, I completed postdoctoral training at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago (Agouron Postdoctoral Fellowship), after holding appointments at Caltech (Trimble & Barr Postdoctoral Fellowships), Yale University (MPhil & PhD in EPS; 2016-2021), the University of Bonn (BSc in Geosciences; MSc in Evolutionary Biology; 2011-2014), and the Technical University of Dortmund (Junior Excellence Scholarship in Chemistry; 2007-2011). Website: https://www.jasminawiemann.com/

M. Gabriella Mángano

As an ichnologist, Gabriela Mángano works at the crossroad of Paleobiology and Sedimentology. She is particularly interested in how animal-sediment interactions have helped shape the evolution of the biosphere. She has worked in marine, marginal marine and continental environments, in rocks ranging from the Precambrian to the Holocene. Gabriela has been recognized by several prestigious awards. Her extensive publication record includes 6 books, and over 300 papers and book chapters. She has supervised or co-supervised more than 50 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. After finishing her PhD in Argentina, Gabriela Mángano spent 4 years as a postdoc in the USA, and after a brief stint back in Argentina as a CONICET researcher, she moved to Canada in 2004. Currently she is a Distinguished Professor and the George J. McLeod Enhancement Chair at the Department of Geological Sciences of the University of Saskatchewan. Gabriela has served as co-editor for PALAIOS and Sedimentology. She is currently Co-Editor for Lethaia. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Ameghiniana, Journal of Paleontology, PALAIOS, Palaeo-3, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, and Swiss Journal of Palaeontology. She was also a member of the Scientific Board of the UNESCO International Geoscience Program (IGCP) and is a Voting Member of the International Subcommissions on Cambrian Stratigraphy and Ordovician Stratigraphy.

Marion Bamford

Prof Marion Bamford is one of a few palaeobotanists in southern Africa and specialises in fossil woods and palaeoclimate interpretations. She also studies macroplants, seeds, pollen and charcoals from African sites. She has worked with international teams at east and southern African early hominin sites such as Olduvai Gorge, Laetoli, Koobi Fora, Ledi Geraru, Taung and the Sterkfontein Valley. After schooling in Zimbabwe, she came to Wits and completed all her degrees there. Currently she is the Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University in South Africa.

Kristi Curry Rogers

Dr. Kristi Curry Rogers is the DeWitt Wallace Professor of Biology and Geology at Macalester College, where she received the Jack and Marty Rossman Award for Excellence in Teaching. She completed her BSc in Biology at Montana State University, and her PhD in Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University. She specializes in the long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods and has traveled around the globe in search of their bones. Kristi was awarded an NSF CAREER grant to investigate the effects of environmental stress on the bones of vertebrates. She is the author of more than 50 scholarly articles, has published two articles in Scientific American, and is an editor of a book titled The Sauropods: Paleobiology and Evolution. She is the Vice President of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, She has been a consultant and on-screen expert for programs aired on PBS, BBC Horizon, the Discovery Channel, and the National Geographic Channel, and recently appeared in her first IMAX film (Maximo!). Kristi is also a professor for Wondrium, and her course “Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs” has gained recent critical acclaim.

Christian Kammerer

Dr. Christian Kammerer is Research Curator of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, USA. His research centers on terrestrial faunas at the juncture between the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras, particularly concerning mass extinctions and the origin of mammals. Much of his career has been devoted to studying the taxonomic diversity, palaeobiology, and evolutionary history of the Permo-Triassic synapsids of the Karoo Basin. His doctoral work at the University of Chicago, in the laboratory of Neil Shubin, used the exceptionally rich record of synapsid crania to analyze morphological disparity of the group over time. During subsequent postdoctoral work at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, he examined the origins of novel anatomical features in synapsids using CT-data. His field programs span four continents, but are currently focused close to home on some extremely productive Late Triassic sites in the Chatham Group of North Carolina.