South Australian Museum - North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000

Palaeo Forum - this lecture is now fully booked.

Abstract: 

Join the South Australian Museum in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Palaeontology Week with an exceptional Palaeo Forum featuring renowned international guest palaeontologists. 

• Dr Philip Currie - Professor and Canada Research Chair, Dinosaur Palaeobiology, University of Alberta, Canada. 
• Dr Diego Garcia-Bellido Capdevilla - Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas, University of Madrid, Spain.
• Dr John Long - Vice President, Research and Collections, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, USA.

Moderated by Dr Paul Willis, Director, Royal Institution of Australia.

*Please note Dr Benjamin Kear will no longer be attending this forum. 

Biographies:

Dr Philip Currie is the Canada Research Chair of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta, but is best known for his 10 years at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Canada, where he was Curator of Dinosaurs. He also holds positions as Adjunct Professor at the University of Saskatchewan and Affiliate Research Association of Palaoeontology Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University, and Adjunct Full Professor at the University of Calgary. 

Prior to this he has held a variety of roles including advisor on the Dinosaur Experience panel at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and has published books, papers and scientific publications. 

Dr Diego Garcia-Bellido Capdevilla studied at the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, and has since worked in research institutions in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Australia. His main interest revolves around the most important evolutionary event in animal life: the Cambrian 'explosion', when the first indisputable arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms, and the ancestors of vertbrates developed over half a billion years ago.

He currently heads a research project for the Spanish Research Council to find more locations with Burgess Shale-type and Orsten-type Cambrian fossils in Spain, and to study their palaeographic implications in collaboration with Australian colleagues. He is also working with the South Australian Museum to excavating and studying the Early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale on Kangaroo Island. 

Dr John Long is Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC), USA. He studied his PhD at Monash University, and was later appointed Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Western Australian Museum. His work covers Devonian fish, dinosaurs and megafauna discoveries from all parts of Australia, as well as collecting expeditions to Antarctica, Africa, South East Asia and Iran. 

In 2004 he was appointed Head of Sciences at Museum Victoria in Melbourne and in 2009, moved to his current position at the NHMLAC. He has named over 50 new species of prehistoric animals and written some 20 books.  

Dr Benjamin Kear initially undertook undergraduate studies in palaeontology and zoology at both Macquarie University and the University of New South Wales. His PhD focused on Australian Mesozoic marine reptiles, but he has since expanded his work into fossil mammals, fish, invertebrates, and evolutionary genetics of modern marsupial species. His research interests are primarily the macroevolution of Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates. 

He has authored more than 40 scientific papers in addition to numerous technical reports, popular articles, extracts and reviews. Dr Kear is also an Honorary Research Associate with the South Australian Museum. 

Dr Paul Willis is Director of the Royal Institution of Australia. He studied zoology and geology at the University of New South Wales, and completed a doctorate studying fossil crocodiles. He has a solid research career in vertebrate palaeontology, and has discovered a number of significant vertebrate fossil specimens, including a small dinosaur and a large ichthyosaur. 

He has worked as a science broadcaster with the ABC has authored and co-authored seven books and many popular articles on science subjects across a wide range of topics.