User:Wyethstiles/scottsampson

Scott D. Sampson

Scott D. Sampson (born 1961) is a Canadian paleontologist and science communicator. His primary research focus is the ecology and evolution of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs. After receiving a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Toronto in 1993, he spent one year at the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY), five years as assistant professor of anatomy at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (Old Westbury, NY), and eight years at the University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT). The latter was a dual position with the Utah Museum of Natural History and the Department of Geology and Geophysics, where Sampson served for the last several years of that period as chief curator and associate professor, respectively. In 2007, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area of California. As Research Curator at the Utah Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Associate Professor with the Dept. of Geology and Geophysics, Sampson continues his dinosaur research through the University of Utah. In addition, he is now pursuing a range of new projects focused on education and sustainability.

Contents 1) Paleontological Research 2) Science Communication 3) References 4) External Links

Paleontological Research

Sampson’s paleontological research has involved fieldwork in Madagascar, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. His doctoral work addressed the evolution of short-frilled horned dinosaurs (centrosaurines) and included naming two new forms from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian) of Montana: Einiosaurus procurvicornis and Achelousaurus horneri (1). His dissertation work also addressed the growth patterns of horned dinosaurs (2) and the role of bizarre structures in evolution (3). He has spent multiple seasons working on the island of Madagascar as part of the Mahajanga Basin Project, headed by David Krause (Stony Brook University). Sampson’s role in this collaborative research has included description of the big-bodied Malagasy predatory dinosaur Majungasaurus crenatissimus (4, 5, 6). He also co-authored papers naming one non-avian theropod dinosaur (Masiakasaurus knopfleri [7]), one bird (Vorona berivotrensis [8]), and one feathered theropod of uncertain affinities (Rahonavis ostromi [9]). Masiakasaurus knopfleri, translated as “the vicious lizard of Knopfler,” was named after Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits (10). Majungasaurus and Masiakasaurus have been key elements in the “Africa First hypothesis,” which postulates that Africa was the first major southern landmass to break away from the southern supercontinent Gondwana, with major consequences for biotic evolution [4, 8, 11]. The Madagascar work was augmented by investigations into the anatomy and historical relationships of basal theropods, conducted with Matthew Carrano (Smithsonian Institution; [12, 13, 14]). Since 1999, Sampson has headed up the Kaiparowits Basin Project, a large scale project in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. This interdisciplinary research has yielded abundant remains of a previously unknown assemblage of dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous Kaiparowits Formation. The list of newly discovered forms includes a variety of bird-hipped (ornithischian) dinosaurs, such as the duck-billed hadrosaur Gryposaurus monumentensis (15), together with horned dinosaurs [16], ankylosaurs, pachcephalosaurs, and hypsilophodonts. Theropods are represented by tyrannosaurs, ornithomimids, and various maniraptors like the oviraptorosaur Hagryphus giganteus (17). During the Late Cretaceous, these animals, many of them with giant body sizes, inhabited a small landmass called Laramidia formed by flooding of the central region of North America. Although less than one-fifth the size of present day North America, Laramidia was home to numerous giant dinosaurs, many of them approaching or exceeding the size of African elephants. The new dinosaur fossils from Utah—augmented by remains of non-dinosaur vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants—are being used to test the hypothesis that distinct “communities” of dinosaurs existed in the northern and southern regions of Laramidia during much of the late Campanian.

Science Communication

Sampson is a frequent lecturer to general and specialist audiences, speaking on dinosaurs, evolution, education, and the Great Story (18). He has argued (19) that evolution should be paired with ecology and placed at the core of the educational curriculum. In the summer of 2009, he was one of four international scientists selected by the Australian government to participate in the National Tour, a nationwide lecture tour that is part of the annual Science Festival. In 2004, he was the primary science advisor and on-air host of the four-part Discovery Channel series Dinosaur Planet. Appearing as “Dr. Scott the Paleontologist,” Sampson is presently serving the same pair of roles in the PBS children’s television series Dinosaur Train, produced by the Jim Henson Company (20, 21). Sampson’s recent book, Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life (22), is the first comprehensive, general audience review of dinosaur paleontology and the Mesozoic saga of dinosaurs in almost a generation. Dinosaur Odyssey places dinosaurs in an expansive web of relationships with other organisms, using these famous creatures to illustrate the workings of the natural world. Sampson argues that dinosaurs—particularly through their living counterparts, birds—are exceptional tools for fostering nature literacy, including an understanding of deep time and the epic of evolution.

References

1) Sampson, S. D. 1995. Two new horned dinosaurs from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana, USA, with a phylogenetic analysis of the Centrosaurinae (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 15(4): 743-760. 2) Sampson, S. D., Ryan, M. J. and Tanke, D. H. 1997. Craniofacial ontogeny in centrosaurine dinosaurs (Ornithischia: Ceratopsidae): Taxonomic and behavioral implications. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 221(2): 293-337. 3) Sampson, S. D. 1999. Sex and destiny: The role of mating signals in speciation and macroevolution. Historical Biology, 13: 173-197. 4) Sampson, S. D., Witmer, L. M., Forster, C. A., Krause, D. W., O’Connor, P. M., Dodson, P. and Ravoavy, F. 1998. Predatory dinosaur remains from Madagascar: Implications for the Cretaceous biogeography of Gondwana. Science, 280: 1048-1051. 5) Sampson, S. D. and Krause, D. W. (eds.). 2007. Majungasaurus crenatissiumus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 8, 184 pp. 6) Sampson, S. D. and Witmer, L. M. 2007. Craniofacial anatomy of Majungasaurus crenatissiumus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 8, 3(Suppl. to 2): 32-102. 7) Forster, C. A., Chiappe, L. M., Krause, D. W., and Sampson, S. D. 1996. The first Cretaceous bird from Madagascar. Nature, 382: 532-534. 8) Sampson, S. D., Carrano, M. T., Forster, C. A. 2001. A bizarre predatory dinosaur from Madagascar: implications for the evolution of Gondwanan theropods. Nature, 409: 504-505. 9) Forster, C. A., Sampson, S. D., Chiappe, L. M., and Krause, D. W. 1998. The theropodan ancestry of birds: New evidence from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Science, 279: 1915-1919. 10) http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s237427.htm 11) Krause, D. W., O’Connor, P. M., Curry Rogers, K., Sampson, S. D., Buckley, G. A. and Rogers, R. R. 2006. Late Cretaceous vertebrates from Madagascar: Implications for Latin American biogeography. Latin American Biogeography, Missouri Botanical Gardens Press, 93: 178-208. 12) Carrano, M. T., Sampson, S. D., and Forster, C. A. 2002. The osteology of Masiakasaurus knopfleri, a new abelisauroid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 22(3): 510-534. 13) Carrano, M. T. and Sampson, S. D. 2004. A review of European Lower Jurassic coelophysoids (Dinosauria: Theropoda), with comments on the late history of the Coelophysoidea. Neues Jahrbuch. Geol. Palaeont. Mh., 9: 537-558. 14) Carrano, M. T. and Sampson, S. D. 2008. The phylogeny of Ceratosauria (Dinosauria: Theropoda). Journal of Systematic Paleontology, 6(2): 183-226. 15) Gates, T. A. and Sampson, S. D. 2007. A new species of Gryposaurus (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae) from the Upper Campanian Kaiparowits Formation of Utah. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 151:351-376. 16) Sampson, S. D. and Loewen, M. A. 2009. Unraveling a radiation: a review of the diversity, stratigraphic distribution, biogeography, and evolution of horned dinosaurs. (Ornithischia:Ceratopsidae). Ceratopsian Dinosaurs. Indiana University Press. 17) Zanno, L. E. and Sampson, S. D. 2005. A new oviraptorosaur (Theropoda: Maniraptora) from the late Campanian of Utah and the status of the North American Oviraptorosauria. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 25(4): 897-904. 18) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Evolution 19) Sampson, S. D. 2006. Evoliteracy. Pp. 216-231 in J. Brockman (ed.), Intelligent Thought. Knopf, New York. 20) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74h1GcIiFOA 21) http://www.pbs.org/teachers/dinosaurtrain/velociraptor/ 22) Sampson, S. D. 2009. Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life. University of California Press, Berkeley.

External Links

• Scott Sampson’s website (www.scottsampson.net) • Dinosaur Odyssey (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10208.php) • Dinosaur Train (www.pbskids.org/dinosaurtrain) • Dinosaur Train interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9myAo7mqRc) • Utah Museum of Natural History (www.umnh.utah.edu/dinos) • Biography for Scott Sampson on Edge.org (http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/sampson.html)