Matt Lamanna

Matthew Carl Lamanna is a paleontologist and the assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where he oversees the dinosaur collection.

Education

Lamanna graduated from Hobart College in Geneva, New York in 1997. He received high honors in biology and geology. Lamanna went on to get his M.A. and Ph.D. in earth and environmental science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Discoveries

Lamanna first gained fame for the 2000 discovery of Paralititan in Egypt, called the "largest dinosaur ever discovered". The sauropod was 80 feet long and weighed between 40 and 50 tons. The discovery was the feature of a 2-hour documentary The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt.

Beginning in 2004, Lamanna began work on a series of digs in China. The result, first published in the journal Science in June 2006, was the discovery of Gansus yumenensis, a missing link in the early evolution of birds.

External links

• Lamanna's CV at Carnegie Museum
• Lamanna’s biography at Carnegie Museum
• “Remarkable Alum” entry at Hobart and William Smith Colleges website
• Ancestor of Modern Birds Believed Found – The Washington Post
• Ducklike Fossil Points to Aquatic Origins for Modern Birds – Scientific American