Stephen Louis "Steve" Brusatte

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(born April 24, 1984) is an American author and

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biol ...

who specializes in the anatomy and evolution of

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic Geological period, period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the #Evolutio ...

s. He was educated at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

for his Bachelor's degree, at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

for his Master's of Science on a

Marshall Scholarship The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is considered among the most prestigious scholarsh ...

, and finally at the

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

for Master's in Philosophy and Doctorate. He is currently Professor of Palaeontology and Evolution at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

. In April 2024, Brusatte was elected to fellowship of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. In addition to his scientific papers and technical monographs, his popular book ''Dinosaurs'' (2008) and the textbook ''Dinosaur Paleobiology'' (2012) earned him accolades, and he became the resident palaeontologist and scientific consultant for the

BBC Earth BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster. BBC Earth commercia ...

and

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc., formerly 20th Century Fox, is an American film studio, film production and Film distributor, distribution company owned by the Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios, the film studios division of the ...

's 2013 film ''

Walking With Dinosaurs ''Walking with Dinosaurs'' is a 1999 six-part nature documentary television miniseries created by Tim Haines and produced by the BBC Science Unit, the Discovery Channel and BBC Worldwide, in association with TV Asahi, ProSieben and France 3. ...

'', which was followed by his popular book ''Walking with Dinosaurs Encyclopedia''. His book '' The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World'' (2018), written for the adult lay person, won widespread acclaim and was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. In June 2022, he published ''The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us''.

Biography

Brusatte was born in

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

to Jim and Roxanne Brusatte. He was educated at the

Ottawa Township High School Ottawa Township High School, or Ottawa High School, is a high school located at 211 East Main Street in Ottawa, IL. Buildings The school comprises three buildings, each with three stories. The main building is the first building seen upon appr ...

. From 2002, he attended the University of Chicago from where he earned his Bachelor's in geophysical sciences in 2006. He studied under

Paul Sereno Paul Callistus Sereno (born October 11, 1957) is a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago who has discovered several new dinosaur species on several continents, including at sites in Inner Mongolia, Argentina, Morocco and Niger. ...

. 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 a Marshall Scholarship to study in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. He entered the University of Bristol and obtained a Master's in Science in palaeobiology and earth sciences in 2008. His master's thesis was titled ''Basal Archosaur Phylogeny and Evolution'', and was supervised by Michael J. Benton. He returned to the US to join Columbia University, from where he completed his Master's in Philosophy in 2011 and Doctorate in 2013 from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. During this period, he concurrently worked as a researcher at the Division of Paleontology of the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

. He became a Chancellor's Fellow in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the School of GeoSciences in the University of Edinburgh in February 2013. He is a member of the Editorial Board for ''

Current Biology ''Current Biology'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers all areas of biology, especially molecular biology, cell biology, genetics, neurobiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. The journal includes research artic ...

''.

Contributions

Brusatte 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''. Additionally, he 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 CharacterSearch, 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. Having discovered the skull, jaw, and neck fossils of a 95-million-year-old theropod in the

Elrhaz Formation The Elrhaz Formation is a geological Formation (geology), formation in Niger, West Africa. Its strata date back to the Early Cretaceous, about 125 to 112 million years ago. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the ...

of Niger in 1997, Sereno 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. The animal was found to be a new species of ''

Carcharodontosaurus ''Carcharodontosaurus'' (; ) is a genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaur that lived in Northwest Africa from about 100 to 94 million years ago during the Cenomanian age of the Cretaceous. Two teeth of the genus, now lost, were first des ...

'', which they named ''C. iguidensis''. He estimated that the complete skull would be more than five feet long, one of the biggest skulls of a known carnivorous dinosaur. This was followed by the description of another new theropod from the Elrhaz Formation in January 2008, '' Kryptops palaios''. Another significant discovery was from China in 2014. Alongside Chinese paleontologist

Lü Junchang Lü Junchang (; 1965 – 9 October 2018) was a Chinese palaeontologist and professor at the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. An expert on Mesozoic reptiles, he described and named dozens of dinosaur and pterosaur taxa ...

and others, Brusatte described a 66-million-year-old dinosaur, '' Qianzhousaurus sinensis'', which was closely related to the '' T. rex''. Due to its long snout, it was given the nickname "Pinocchio rex". In January 2015, his team announced the discovery of a marine reptile belonging to the

Jurassic Period The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the second and m ...

, around 170 million years ago. The giant, long-nosed, fish-like animal, named '' Dearcmhara shawcrossi'', was found on the

Isle of Skye The Isle of Skye, or simply Skye, is the largest and northernmost of the major islands in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate from a mountainous hub dominated by the Cuillin, the rocky slopes of which provide some of ...

in Scotland. He warrants that the species is not ancestral to

Nessie NESSIE (New European Schemes for Signatures, Integrity and Encryption) was a European research project funded from 2000 to 2003 to identify secure cryptographic primitives. The project was comparable to the NIST AES process and the Japanese Go ...

, the Scottish legendary marine animal, as popular media liked to hype, but is certainly the first "distinctly Scottish prehistoric marine reptile". Below is a list of taxa that Brusatte has contributed to naming:

Documentary appearances

Stephen Brusatte took part in several documentaries. In 2015, he appeared in '' T. Rex Autopsy'', a documentary produced by

National Geographic Channel National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney Enter ...

and aired on 7 June 2015. In 2016, he appeared in ''T-Rex: An Evolutionary Journey'', produced by

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

Movies

In February 2020, Brusatte was hired as a member of the consulting team of paleontologists to work on ''

Jurassic World Dominion ''Jurassic World Dominion'' is a 2022 American Science fiction film, science fiction action film directed by Colin Trevorrow, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emily Carmichael (filmmaker), Emily Carmichael from a story by Derek Connolly and Tre ...

''. The film included many feathered dinosaurs for the first time in a ''

Jurassic Park ''Jurassic Park'', later referred to as ''Jurassic World'', is an American science fiction media franchise created by Michael Crichton, centered on a disastrous attempt to create a theme park of De-extinction#Cloning, cloned dinosaurs. It bega ...

'' movie. Brusatte reported that he had been extensively involved with the production team and that he made director

Colin Trevorrow Colin Trevorrow (; born September 13, 1976) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He made his feature directorial debut with the science fiction comedy ''Safety Not Guaranteed'' (2012) to critical and commercial success. Trevo ...

promise to include feathered dinosaurs in this installment of the franchise.

Works

*''Stately Fossils: A Comprehensive Look at the State Fossils and Other Official Fossils'' (2002) *''Dinosaurs'' (2008) *''Field Guide to Dinosaurs'' (2009) *''Dinosaur Paleobiology'' (2012) *''Were Stegosaurs Carnivores?'' (2012) *''Walking with Dinosaurs Encyclopedia (Walking With Dinosaurs the 3d Movie)'' (2013) *''Day of the Dinosaurs: Step into a spectacular prehistoric world (Science X 10)'' (2016) *''Pinocchio Rex and Other Tyrannosaurs'' (2017) *''

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs ''The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World'' is a 2018 book by paleontologist Steve L. Brusatte. The book chronicles the evolution of dinosaurs, their rise as the dominant clade, and ends with an account of the extinctio ...

: A New History of a Lost World'' (2018) *''The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us'' (2022)

References

External links

Web pageProfile at The Conversation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brusatte, Stephen L. 1984 births Living people American paleontologists Marshall Scholars University of Chicago alumni People from Ottawa, Illinois Columbia University alumni Alumni of the University of Bristol Academics of the University of Edinburgh 21st-century American scientists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh American evolutionary biologists Writers from Illinois 21st-century American non-fiction writers