Trilobites: Who Were They? What Were They Doing?

Trilobites are an iconic part of the Paleozoic macroscopic fossil record with over 22,000 known species, but their relationship to modern arthropod clades and lifestyles remain poorly understood. One specimen of Anacheirurus adserai from the Fezouata Shale (Lower Ordovician, Tremadocian; Morocco) has the first known preserved brain, which shows similarities with modern mandibulate arthropods. Arthropod appendages can be specialized for many uses, providing crucial insights into extinct species ecological roles. Only 41 species of trilobites have known preserved appendages, detailed study of morphology and preservation demonstrates how different taxa used limbs for feeding, walking, swimming, breathing, and mating. 

Dr. Sarah Losso is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University using exceptionally preserved fossils with rarely preserved soft tissues to better understand early arthropod evolution and ecology. She completed her Bachelor’s degree at Mount Holyoke College, then a Master’s degree at the University of Iowa. Her PhD dissertation at Harvard University focused on understanding the limb morphology of trilobites and their close relatives. Dr. Losso’s postdoctoral research focuses on the functional morphology of limbs to understand ecological roles, evolutionary patterns and transitions between environments.

Digitally Reconstructing the Skull of the Upper Jurassic sphenodontian Eilenodon robustus

Sphenodontians were relatively common members of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation herpofauna of western North America. These relatives of the modern-day Tuatara (Sphenodon puncuatus) have been found from multiple sites in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Currently, three genera are named from the Morrison Formation: Eilenodon robustus, Opisthias rarus, and Theretairus antiquus. Of these taxa, Eilenodon is the largest and most morphologically divergent. While most described specimens of E. robustus are limited to isolated remains of tooth-bearing elements, the large size and flattened teeth of E. robustus indicate a more herbivorous lifestyle than that of the living Sphenodon and the other genera from the Morrison Formation. From 2016 to 2023, three new associated skeletons with cranial material attributable to E. robustus were collected from the Morrison beds of Utah. These new specimens, coupled with a combination of digitization techniques including portable structured light surface scanning and micro X-ray computed tomography permit a new cranial reconstruction of this bizarrely unique sphenodontian that hints at its role in the late Jurassic ecosystem.

Dr. Joseph Peterson is a Professor of Geology at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. His research in vertebrate paleontology covers a wide range of subjects including injuries and behavioral interpretations in dinosaurs, the science of how fossils are preserved, and paleoecology. He has been actively working in the Morrison Formation of Utah for the last decade studying the accumulation mechanisms of bonebeds in the Late Jurassic period.

Lone Star Lizard Kings: A Gigantic New Mosasaur from Texas

I am a paleobiologist from Milwaukee, WI, currently working as the Museum Specialist for Natural History Programs for the History Museum at the Castle in Appleton, WI. My research career is focused on the anatomy and evolution of mosasaurs, a group of extinct marine lizards. I received my BA in Biology from Carthage College (Kenosha, WI) in 2020, and my PhD in Comparative Biology from the Richard Gilder Graduate School at the American Museum of Natural History (New York, NY) in 2025. I also co-founded the Skeleton Crew, a paleontology-focused science communication YouTube channel, with four other professional paleontologists.

The Cretaceous Underground: Idaho's 100-Million-Year-Old Fossil Record

An overview of Idaho's Cretaceous fossil record, which consists of unusual animals in a mysterious slice of time. This cast of characters includes burrowing dinosaurs, walking tanks, tiny tyrants, giant hell chickens, and musically talented (or at least named after the musically talented) small and large crocodiles, all of which coexisted near an ancient seaway.

L.J. has a BS Biology ISU, MS Geology BYU, PhD Earth Sciences at MSU. Research interests in orodromine dinosaurs, specifically Oryctodromeus; Triassic Paris Biota, ornithopods of the Morrison Formation, and the Spence Shale of Utah and Idaho. Proud father of two stellar children, and dashingly single bald man.

Research on Cretaceous Palaeobotany/Palynology of Alberta

Eva has her roots in Denmark, receiving a MSc at University of Copenhagen in 1986 on Cretaceous megaspores, and a PhD at University of Aarhus in 1993 on Mesozoic palynostratigraphy. During this time, she undertook several palynology-focused research projects across Europe. In 1996, she became a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, followed by research roles until 2005 when she began working at the University of Alberta. 

The Evolution of Tyrannosaurid Research In Alberta

Dr. Phil Currie is an internationally renowned paleontologists whose scientific accomplishments have led to a greater understanding of dinosaurs and their historic significance. He was instrumental in the development of Alberta's Royal Tyrrell Museum and has made major contributions to paleontology on both the Canadian and the world stage through his extensive field work, academic research, writing and teaching. 

A Time-Hiker's Guide to the Birds of Southeast Montana 

Dive into the collections of the Carter County Museum with Dr. Carroll on a birding tour through time in Ekalaka, MT. With rare glimpses of birds with teeth, clawed wings, and weird approaches to flight, this talk will examine how the birds that flew and swam in the time of dinosaurs led to the turkeys on your Thanksgiving table.

Dr. Nathan Carroll is the Curator of Paleontology at the Carter County Museum in Ekalaka, Montana. After attending Montana State University for his BS and University of Southern California for his PhD studying feather evolution, Nathan moved back to his hometown in Ekalaka to curate and expand the paleontology resources at the Carter County Museum.

Eocene and Oligocene Mammals from the Mountains and Valleys of Southwest Montana

Valleys in SW Montana are filled with Eocene-Miocene rocks that contain vertebrate fossils. In 1899 Earl Douglass made the first collections and this research continues today. The Pipestone Springs site has yielded over 20 new mammal species and numerous coprolites (fossil scat). Study of these fossils and those from other sites provide a view of the paleontological history of SW Montana.  

Don Lofgren received a PhD in paleontology from UC Berkeley in 1990, served as director of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology from 1991-2021, does field work on Cretaceous-Tertiary rocks in California, Utah, and Montana, and specializes in the study of fossil mammals.

Prehistoric Predators: Sabertoothed Cats to Killer Wombats

DeSantis earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (B.S.), Yale University (M.E.M.), and the University of Florida (Ph.D.).  Through the study of fossil mammals, she determines how they responded to ancient climate change, potential reasons why they went extinct, and the long-term consequences of both climate change and large animal extinctions on a diversity of plants and animals, including predators and their prey.  

Building Dinosaurs - Old Bones and New Tricks

Michael will offer insight on the materials and techniques he used over twenty years ago to create many of the dinosaur reconstructions still on display today in the MOR paleo exhibits.  Those examples will be compared with Michael’s more recent works in other museums, showing how his work has evolved by combining traditional methods from a century ago with new 3D imaging and fabrication technology.  See how fossils from the collection cabinets become engaging and scientifically accurate exhibit features.  Learn how this work helps to further our understanding of extinct animals, and understand why it brings museum visitors opportunities that would otherwise not be possible. 

Time Travel Tourism: Art, Advocacy, and the Montana Dinosaur Trail

Jenn Hall is a museum specialist in illustration, taxidermy, and interpretive design. She holds an M.A. in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University where she focused on exhibit design and reshaping conventional narratives. She also holds a B.F.A. and Geology minor from the University of Pennsylvania and a printmaking certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. For over a decade, she has collaborated with Montana paleontologists and organizations to promote the state’s natural and cultural heritage. Her artwork is featured at Dinosaur National Monument, Edelman Fossil Park, the Museum of the Rockies, the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, and the Carter County Museum, and has appeared in TED Talks, NBC’s Nightly News, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the History Channel, among others.

Dinosaurs that Dug, iPhones that Scan, and Fossils that Spin in the Digital Void: Adventures in Modern Paleontology 

Grab your shovel and your smartphone, it’s time for a whirlwind tour through the weird and wonderful world of modern paleontology! From the story of Fona herzogae, a rare dinosaur that dug its own den, to scanning fossils with your phone and building prehistoric ecosystems in CGI, paleontologist Haviv Avrahami showcases the tools, tech, and teamwork behind today’s fossil frontiers. Whether it’s mailing 66-million-year-old microfossils to classrooms across the globe or hiking into the badlands in search of bones, this talk is your all-access pass to a futuristic take on the ancient past; a fossil-fueled sampler of science in action

Dr. Haviv Avrahami is the Digital Collections and Field Specialist at the Museum of the Rockies. He earned his PhD from North Carolina State University under the advisement of Dr. Lindsay Zanno, where his research focused on small-bodied ornithischian dinosaur anatomy, behavior, and evolution. Haviv is the lead author who named Fona herzogae, a rare burrowing dinosaur that provides direct evidence of digging behavior in dinosaurs. His work spans burrowing dinosaurs, microfossils, field expeditions, and large-scale digital reconstructions, and he is deeply involved in museum curation, public science, and citizen science initiatives. Through both research and outreach, he aims to bring the deep past into sharper, more accessible focus for modern audiences.

What did T. rex taste like?

Description: Dr. White will show how all living things are related, and understanding these relationships allow paleontologists to interpret evolutionary history.

Dr. Lisa D. White is Director of Education at the University of California Museum of Paleontology at the UC Berkeley. She came to the UC Museum of Paleontology after a 22 year career at San Francisco State University as Professor of Geosciences. A micropaleontologist by training and Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and the Geological Society of America (GSA), Dr. White has been honored for her efforts in broadening participation in geoscience and increasing the public understanding of evolutionary science and paleontology. These honors include the GSA Bromery Award, a Society for the Study of Evolution Stephen Jay Gould Prize, and The Paleontological Society Pojeta Award. As the education director at the UC Museum of Paleontology, Dr. White develops and disseminates learning materials on evolution and the fossil record, the nature and process of science, and geological field trip experiences. Dr. White holds degrees from San Francisco State University (B.A. in Geology) and the University of California at Santa Cruz (Ph.D. in Earth Sciences).

Dinosaurs in our Backyard: Digging Fossils on Public Lands at the Late Jurassic Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry, Southern Utah

The Hanksville-Burpee Dinosaur Quarry is a sauropod-dominated multi-taxonomic bonebed in the Brushy Basin member of the Morrison Formation in south central Utah, located on public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Field crews from the Burpee Museum of Natural History located the site in 2007 and have been excavating the site for nearly 20 years since its discovery. The bone-bearing unit extends for more than 1 mile to the northeast and is interpreted as a mass accumulation of fossils deposited within a braided-river system. Over 1,000 fossils have been recovered from the site to date. The most abundant dinosaurs in the quarry belong to the sauropod dinosaurs and include Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus, and possibly Barosaurus. Surprisingly, very few of the recovered sauropod material appears to be of adult size and ranges from very young animals to subadult. 

While the quarry is rich with sauropod material, there is a considerable amount of non-sauropod material present at the site. Theropod material from the quarry includes  Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus. The rare nodosaurid ankylosaur, Mymoorapelta maysi, as well as the ornithopods Dryosaurus  and Nanosaurus and several elements of the plated Stegosaurus have been recovered from the site. Each summer, the Burpee partners with the BLM to provide 5 weeks of free guided tours to visitors of the site while the field crew excavate in the quarry. Over the last 20 years, thousands of visitors have visited the site from all over the U.S and Canada as well as Europe and Asia to see this massive dinosaur graveyard and is one of the few in the country where visitors can see the excavation happening in front of their eyes. 

Josh grew up in southern Wisconsin where he attended the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater double majoring in Biology and Geology.  During his time at UWW, Josh studied paleoecology of invertebrate communities from rocks in southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois. Josh earned a Master’s degree from Northern Illinois University studying a Triceratops bonebed from Carter County, Montana. During this time, he began volunteering as a fossil preparator in the paleontology lab at the Burpee Museum. He accepted the position of Chief Fossil Preparator and Research Assistant to Dr. William Hammer in the Geology Department at Augustana College where he was part of the Transantarctic Vertebrate Paleontology Project joining an expedition to search for dinosaurs in Antarctica in the winter of 2010/2011.

 He returned to NIU to work on his Ph.D. in the Department of Biological Sciences. As a PhD student working for Dr. Karen Samonds, he spent two field seasons searching and excavating fossils in Cenozoic deposits in Madagascar. For his doctoral research, he studied the biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in Carter County, Montana and documented faunal change throughout the formation up to and across the K/Pg boundary.

Fossil Turtles and their Eggs

I will discuss the fossil record of fossil turtle eggs and the turtles that are associated with them. How we can confidently determine these taxonomic identifications. I will also talk about how we student fossil eggshell and some of the unique characteristics of fossil turtle eggs. I will primary focus on specimens that I have studied but others will probably be included

Daniel Lawver received his B.S. in Geology from North Carolina State University in 2009 and his Ph.D. in Paleontology from Montana State University in 2017. He was an Instructor of Anatomy at Stony Brook University's Renaissance School of Medicine from 2017-2023 and is currently the Chair of Anatomy at Touro University School of Osteopathic Medicine in Great Falls, MT. Daniel Lawver's research primarily focuses on the evolution of reproductive anatomy and physiology of turtles, dinosaurs, and their avian descendants

The Evolution of the Bird Brain and the Origins of Flight

In more than 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, powered flight is only known to have evolved three times, in bats, pterosaurs, and of course in birds. This talk explores the Mesozoic origin of avian flight from the perspective of the dinosaurian brain. Fossil reconstructions are integrated with advanced imaging to test hypotheses on how the brain of theropods met the sensory and motor changes of this rare and radical behavioral innovation.

Amy Balanoff is an assistant professor in the Center for Functional Anatomy & Evolution at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She holds appointments in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C and the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her research focuses on the interplay between behavioral innovation with anatomical structure and function during the transition from the primarily two-dimensional environment of ground-dwelling dinosaurs to the three-dimensional environment experienced by most birds today. 

Getting over the Hump: How Camels Dominated North America

When we think about camels, the desert dwelling creatures of today is what most often comes to mind. However, did you know that the camel’s evolutionary journey began in North America 40-46 million years ago? In this talk, we’ll learn about the camel family tree including some of the weird relatives that lived here in the past, as well as up to date research about how they are all related.

Stephanie Lukowski is currently the Director of Education for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. A Chicagoland native, she first fell in love with paleontology through visits to the Field Museum as a child. She received her bachelor’s degree in geology from Tulane University. After leaving the swamps Louisiana, she went on to receive a master’s degree in vertebrate paleontology from the South Dakota School of Mines where she studied a group of early mammals called phenacodontids from the Crazy Mountains Basin in Montana. Later, she received a master’s degree in natural science education from Colorado State University. When not studying weird ancient mammals and teaching the public about natural history, you can find her hiking, skiing, or snuggling with her fluffy cat named Shade.

Where They Walked: A Human Story Written in Footprints

Step into the footsteps of our ancient ancestors! At Engare Sero, Tanzania, over 400 human footprints preserved in volcanic mud tell a vivid story of movement, cooperation, and everyday life 20,000 years ago. By studying these prints, we can see who walked together, how they moved across the landscape, and glimpse a day in the life of early humans. Join me as we follow their paths and uncover the human story written in the ground beneath their feet.