Perot Paleo Projects

DPS will meet Wednesday, May 14th, at 7PM Central time, in the Boonesville Auditorium (Room H125) in the Ellison Miles Building (Bldg H) at Brookhaven Campus of Dallas College, 3939 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch.  Dr. Ron Tykoski, Vice President of Science and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Perot Museum, will give the main presentation on “DPS contributions to active Perot Museum paleo projects”.  In addition, Brenda Costello of UT Arlington will receive her DPS scholarship and tell us about her planned research.

Ron Tykoski earned a BS degree in Geology from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1995, and then went on for MS and PhD degrees from UT Austin.  His masters research was on Syntarsus kayentakatae, and his PhD dissertation was titled “Anatomy, ontogeny, and phylogeny of coelophysoid theropods”.  During this time he did fossil preparation in the university museums.  In 2005 he joined the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, first as a fossil preparator, then director of the paleontology lab, then director of paleontology, then curator of vertebrate paleontology, and currently Vice President of Science.  He has co-authored over 24 papers and 16 abstracts in vertebrate paleontology, and appeared in the media over 25 times.  He has done field work in the Kayenta Formation of Arizona, Big Bend of Texas, and on more than 10 significant excavations of mosasaur, turtle, sauropod, and mammoth fossils in the North Texas area.  He will tell us about some of the more recent projects and the contributions of DPS members.

DPS meetings are open to the public and free!  Members can bring food or snacks to share, and the society provides water or sodas.  Everyone can bring fossils to show or for identification.  Mystery specimens are especially welcome.  The meeting will be streamed on Zoom at: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84751365480 (Meeting ID: 847 5136 5480 and Passcode: 819515).  We apologize for the poor quality of the Zoom feed at the last meeting, and have worked with Brookhaven to solve the problems.  But we encourage everyone to show up in person if you can, since it is guaranteed that you can see and hear the presentation that way, and we love to visit with you and look at fossils together.