DinoFest 2017 Speaker: Joe Sertich
DinoBite — 3 p.m.
"New Dinosaur Discoveries from the Kaiparowits Formation of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument"
Hear how the Kaiparowits Formation in southern Utah has continued to surprise paleontologists like Dr. Sertich by continually revealing new species of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.
Joe Sertich is curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. He received his B.S. from Colorado State University in 2004, his M.S. at the University of Utah in 2006, and his Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 2011.
Sertich's research focuses on dinosaurs, crocodiles, flying reptiles, and their ecosystems during the late Cretaceous. His field-based research is split between the Gondwanan continents of the southern hemisphere and western North America. As one of the primary researchers on the Madagascar Paleontology Project, Sertich is exploring the latest Cretaceous of Madagascar and has expanded the search for dinosaurs to older deposits across the island.
He is also searching for the first latest Cretaceous dinosaurs of Africa, including work in northern Kenya and Egypt. In North America, Sertich leads the Laramidia Project, currently working to uncover a lost world of dinosaurs in the Cretaceous of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah and northwestern New Mexico.