Stephen L. Brusatte

Stephen Brusatte
Born (1984-04-24) 24 April 1984
Ottawa, Illinois, US
Other names Steve Brusatte
Residence Edinburgh, Scotland
Citizenship American
Nationality American
Fields Paleontology
Institutions University of Edinburgh
Alma mater University of Chicago (B.S.)
University of Bristol (MSc)
Columbia University (MPhil & PhD)
Doctoral advisor Mark Norell
Other academic advisors Paul Sereno
Michael J. Benton
Known for Evolution of dinosaurs
Author abbrev. (zoology) Brusatte

Stephen Louis Brusatte (born April 24, 1984) is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, who specializes in the anatomy and evolution of dinosaurs.[1][2] He was educated at the University of Chicago for BS degree, at the University of Bristol for MSc on a Marshall Scholarship, and finally at the Columbia University for MPhil and PhD. He is a Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Palaentology at the University of Edinburgh.[3] In addition to his scientific papers and technical monographs, his popular book Dinosaurs (2008) and the textbook Dinosaur Paleobiology (2012) earned him a wide acclaim, and he became the resident palaeontologist and scientific consultant for the BBC Earth and 20th Century Fox's 2013 film Walking With Dinosaurs, which is followed by his popular book Walking with Dinosaurs Encyclopedia.[4]

Biography

Brusatte was born in Ottawa, Illinois to Jim and Roxanne Brusatte. He was educated at the Ottawa Township High School.[5] From 2002, he attended the University of Chicago from where he earned his BS in geophysical sciences in 2006. He studied under Paul Sereno. He was elected a Student Marshal, the highest academic honor the university bestows to undergraduates. He was also the winner of the John Crerar Foundation Science Writing Prize and the Howard Hughes Institute Undergraduate Research Fellowship. In 2006, he was awarded the Marshall Scholarship to study in the United Kingdom.[6] He entered the University of Bristol and obtained an MSc in both palaeobiology and earth sciences in 2008. His master's thesis was about the origin of a group of dinosaurs and was titled Basal Archosaur Phylogeny and Evolution, on which he was supervised by Michael J. Benton.[7] He returned to the US to join the Columbia University, from where he completed his MPhil in 2011 and PhD in 2013 from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.[1] During this period he concurrently worked as a researcher at the Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History.[2] He became a Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Palaentology at the School of GeoSciences in the University of Edinburgh in February 2013.[3]

Contributions

He is the author of the 2002 book Stately Fossils: A Comprehensive Look at the State Fossils and Other Official Fossils and the 2008 book Dinosaurs. Brusatte has additionally authored several scientific papers as well as over 100 popular articles for magazines such as Fossil News, Dino Press, Dinosaur World, and Prehistoric Times. At Chicago, he aided in the creation of two databases, TaxonSearch and CharacaterSearch, that organize taxonomic and phylogenetic information.

Discovery of fossils

Brusatte has discovered more than a dozen new species of vertebrate fossils. His breakthrough in the study of dinosaur fossils was while at the University of Chicago with Paul Sereno. Sereno had discovered a 95-million-year-old dinosaur skull, jaw and neck fossils in 1997 from Elrhaz Formation of the Niger Republic in Africa, and was looking for a competent student to analyse it. Brusatte took the opportunity in 2004, completed the project in 2005, and published his findings in 2007 with Sereno.[8] It was a new species of dinosaur which they named Carcharodontosaurus saharicus. He estimated that the complete skull would be more than five feet long, one of the biggest skulls of a known carnivorous dinosaur.[5] This was immediately followed by description of another new species in January 2008, named Kryptops palaios.[9] Another significant discovery was from China in 2014. With Chinese paleontologists he described a 66-million-year-old dinosaur, named Qianzhousaurus sinensis,[10] which was closely related to the famous T. rex, and so they gave the nickname "Pinocchio rex".[11]

In January 2015 his team announced the discovery of a marine reptile belonging to the Jurassic Period, around 170 million years ago. The giant, long-nosed, fish-like animal, named Dearcmhara shawcrossi, was found on the Isle of Skye in Scotland.[12] He warrants that the species is not ancestral to Nessie,[13] the Scottish legendary marine animal, as popular media liked to hype,[14] but is certainly the first "distinctly Scottish prehistoric marine reptile".[15]

T. rex Autopsy

Steven Brusatte took part in T. rex Autopsy, a documentary produced by National Geographic Channel and aired on 7 June 2015.

References

  1. 1 2 "Dr Steve Brusatte". Edinburgh Research Explorer. The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Steve Brusatte". www.dinosaurcentral.com. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  3. 1 2 "People: Dr. Stephen Brusatte". The University of Edinburgh. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  4. ↑ "Walking With Dinosaurs Books". DinosaurJungle.com. Answers 2000 Limited. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  5. 1 2 Smith, Hollie (28 December 2007). "OTTAWA: Fossil fascination -- Brusatte researches new breed of meat-eater". The Times. Ottawa Publishing Company, L.L.C. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  6. ↑ Dixon, Kim. "Young scholars off to study at Oxford, Bristol". The University of Chicago Chronicle. 2005. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "Stephen Brusatte". University of Bristol. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Brusatte, Stephen L.; Sereno, Paul C. (2007). "A new species of Carcharodontosaurus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Cenomanian of Niger and a revision of the genus". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 27 (4): 902–916. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2007)27[902:ANSOCD]2.0.CO;2. JSTOR 30117458.
  9. ↑ Sereno, Paul C.; Brusatte, Stephen L. (2008). "Basal Abelisaurid and Carcharodontosaurid Theropods from the Lower Cretaceous Elrhaz Formation of Niger". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 53 (1): 15–46. doi:10.4202/app.2008.0102.
  10. ↑ Lü, Junchang; Yi, Laiping; Brusatte, Stephen L.; Yang, Ling; Li, Hua; Chen, Liu (2014). "A new clade of Asian Late Cretaceous long-snouted tyrannosaurids". Nature Communications. 5 (3788). doi:10.1038/ncomms4788.
  11. ↑ Morgan, James (7 May 2014). "New Tyrannosaur named 'Pinocchio rex'". BBC News. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Brusatte, S. L.; Young, M. T.; Challands, T. J.; Clark, N. D. L.; Fischer, V.; Fraser, N. C.; Liston, J. J.; MacFadyen, C. C. J.; Ross, D. A.; Walsh, S.; Wilkinson, M. (2015). "Ichthyosaurs from the Jurassic of Skye, Scotland". Scottish Journal of Geology. doi:10.1144/sjg2014-018.
  13. ↑ Brusatte, S (13 January 2015). "How we found Scotland's first Jurassic sea reptile (and no, she's not related to Nessie)". The Conversation. The Conversation Media Group. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Knapton, Sarah (12 January 2015). "Was this Nessie's ancestor? Giant prehistoric monster roamed Scottish waters". The Telegraph. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  15. ↑ Sample, Ian (12 January 2015). "Fossil from Skye is new species of marine predator, scientists say". The Guardian. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
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