Our Scientists
Meet the Scientists Who Make Explorology Possible
Anne Weil, Ph.D.
Anne is an advocate of inclusivity in the sciences and of projects involving citizen science; her first involvement in a science project as a child was catching and tagging Monarch butterflies on their Fall migration… Read More
Matt Wedel, Ph.D.
Matt Wedel is a vertebrate paleontologist, and his main areas of interest are sauropod dinosaurs and the evolution of pneumatic (air-filled) bones in dinosaurs and birds. Read More
Kent Smith, Ph.D.
Kent is the Associate Dean of the Office for the Advancement of American Indians in Medicine and Science and Professor of Anatomy at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences and an Affiliated Research Associate at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Read More
Lee Bement, Ph.D.
Leland has been with the Survey for 20 years. Significant research projects include the 10,500-year-old Cooper bison kills and the 10,800-year-old Jake Bluff bison kill. Read More
Paul Sereno, Ph.D.
A professor at the University of Chicago and Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society, Paul Sereno, works with students, technicians and artists in his Fossil Lab to bring to life fossils unearthed from sites around the world. Read More
Nick Czaplewski, Ph.D.
Nick works as a Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology of the University of Oklahoma. Read More
Ian Browne, Ph.D.
Ian is a postdoctoral fellow at the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences where he co-teaches gross anatomy to first-year medical students and is a research associate at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Read More
Rich Cifelli, Ph.D.
Rich is Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Sam Noble Museum and Presidential Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Oklahoma. He joined the museum staff and university faculty in 1986 and has served both continuously since. Read More
Holly Woodward Ballard, Ph.D.
Holly Woodward Ballard is a paleohistologist, and studies fossil bone tissue microstructures to understand the growth and development of extinct animals. Specifically, she makes use of large-sample osteohistology to assess growth dynamics… Read More
Paul Gignac, Ph.D.
Paul Gignac is an evolutionary biomechanist and vertebrate paleontologist. His research focuses on how highly integrated anatomical systems undergo phenotypic change without compromising their biological roles. Read More