On 16 October 2014 Te Papa hosted tyrannosaur expert Dr Stephen Brusatte who revealed the newest members of the tyrannosaur family to an enthusiastic audience. We heard about his global travels to dig up fossils and the latest research on tyrannosaur diversity and evolution. Only this year Steve helped describe the new long-snouted Chinese tyrannosaur nicknamed “Pinocchio rex”.

Steve was born in Illinois, U.S.A., and is currently based at the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh where he is a Chancellor’s Fellow (early career faculty position) studying palaeontology. He studied at the University of Chicago, the University of Bristol (England) and Columbia University (New York) gaining not only a PhD but also three Masters degrees! He has also worked as a Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Steve has been publishing books on palaeontology since he was 18, as well as a long list of scientific and popular articles. His research has covered not only dinosaurs but also crocodiles, pterosaurs, fish and several other groups of early vertebrate fossils and he’s received numerous honours and awards.