Nobumichi Tamura, often shortened to Nobu Tamura, is a French-born

Japanese American are Americans of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Americans were among the three largest Asian Americans, Asian American ethnic communities during the 20th century; but, according to the 2000 United States census, 2000 census, they have declined in ...

paleoartist Paleoart (also spelled palaeoart, paleo-art, or paleo art) is any original artistic work that attempts to depict prehistoric life according to scientific evidence.#Anson, Ansón, Fernández & Ramos (2015) pp. 28–34. Works of paleoart may be r ...

and

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

. He currently lives in

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Biography

Tamura became a physicist with

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

(LBNL) and is an artist specializing in the field of paleoart. Tamura was a student at

Grenoble Institute of Technology The Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP) (''Institut polytechnique de Grenoble'' , ''Groupe Grenoble INP'' and before INPG) is a French technological university system consisting of eight engineering and management schools. Grenoble I ...

from 1986-1989 for electrochemistry, and then from 1989 until 1993 for his PhD in Materials Science. He worked at

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

from May 1998 to August 1999, and then moved to LBNL. He has worked there ever since as the project leader for the development of the

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or—in the United States—Lou Gehrig's disease (LGD), is a rare, terminal neurodegenerative disorder that results in the progressive loss of both upper and low ...

X-Ray microdiffraction beamline. He is a Senior Scientist in Diffraction and Imaging, and Photon Science Operations. He has published over 300 articles, including in publications such as the Journal of Structural Biology and the Proceedings of SPIE, which focus on research into utilizing microdiffraction of soft x-rays to measure stress, among other things. In addition to his work in the field of optics, he also has an extensive portfolio of paleoart. He has illustrated two books: Dinosaurs of the British Isles and Vertebrate Evolution: From Origins to Dinosaurs and Beyond. In an interview in 2016 he estimated that he's published over 1,500 drawings since 2007, and continues to release new content on his Spinops. According to Tamura, he was inspired to begin making paleoart while browsing through Wikipedia when he noticed that the dinosaur pages did not have any illustrations. He told Inverse in 2016 that he remembers thinking "Maybe I can do something about it." In PBS Eons' video "An Illustrated History of Dinosaurs," he is listed as a prominent figure in the newest age of paleoart.

References

External links

Spinops
Nobu Tamura's Paleoart Portfolio * Paleoartists French physicists Living people Japanese physicists Year of birth missing (living people) {{France-physicist-stub