Dueling Dinosaurs Grand Opening – Main Event Page
Grand Opening Activities Page:
Dino-Enthusiast Activities | Celebrate STEM Activities
Getting Here and Parking
Venue: SECU Daily Planet Theater
10:30am: Underestimating Dinosaurs: The Paleospecies Problem
Dr. James Napoli, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Dr. James Napoli is a vertebrate paleontologist who studies the evolution of meat-eating dinosaurs, including tyrannosaurs and small bird-like theropods like Velociraptor. He has developed innovative methods to identify new dinosaur species, and has named two new dinosaurs so far. He is a postdoctoral researcher on the Dueling Dinosaurs project, focusing on the Dueling Dinosaurs tyrannosaur and its implications for tyrannosaur growth and evolution.
11:30am: Getting Into a Dinosaur’s Head: The Senses, Smarts and Lifestyle of Willo the Thescelosaurus
Dr. David Button, University of Bristol
Dr David Button is a paleontologist formerly based at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, but is currently working at the University of Bristol in the UK. David is particularly interested in plant-eating dinosaurs, and uses techniques such as CT scanning and computer modeling to reconstruct how they looked, lived, and evolved as part of their larger Mesozoic world.
12:30pm: The Fossil History of North Carolina
Dr. Christian Kammerer, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Dr. Christian Kammerer is the Research Curator of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. His research focuses on the assembly of modern faunas at the dawn of the age of dinosaurs, with particular interest in the ancestors of mammals.
1:30pm Rise of the Tyrants: How Climate Change Spurred the Evolution of Earth’s Most Famous Predator
Dr. Lindsay Zanno, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Dr. Lindsay Zanno is the Head of Paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, an associate professor at NC State University, President of the Jurassic Foundation, and creator of the Dueling Dinosaurs and Cretaceous Creatures projects. Dr. Zanno and her team spend several months in the field each year discovering new dinosaurs and bringing them back to the Museum to study.
2:30pm: Dinosaur Bling: Why Did Dinosaurs Evolve Ornaments?
Dr. Terry “Bucky” Gates, North Carolina State University
Dr. Bucky Gates is a professor in the biology department at NC State University. He got his undergraduate degree in geology from NC State before moving to the University of Utah to earn his master’s and PhD in paleontology. Bucky teaches a variety of interdisciplinary courses at NCSU and, every chance he gets, studies the fossil record of sharks and dinosaurs as well as the foundations of evolution.
3:30pm: The Science and Science Fiction of Dinosaur De-extinction
Dr. Elizabeth Jones, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Dr. Elizabeth Jones is a science historian, educator, and author. She is the project manager for Cretaceous Creatures in the Paleontology Research Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and postdoctoral researcher at NC State University.
4:30pm: Unlocking North Carolina’s Prehistoric Past: A Brief Journey Through Our Paleontology Collections
Sean Moran, NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Sean Moran is the Paleontology Collections Manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. While his specific research interests are in 34-million-year-old mammals, he has the pleasure of working with many fossils, from crabs to dinosaurs, on a daily basis. He is thrilled to share some of those specimens with you.