Dinosaur expert Paul Sereno to present tyrannosaur excavated by
high school, undergrad students enrolled in Graham School

Summer expedition is topic of ‘21st Century Science’ lecture at University of Chicago

A group of high school and undergraduate students at the University of Chicago’s Graham School of General Studies can’t wait for people to find out what they did on their summer vacation. More than a dozen young paleontologists taking Professor Paul Sereno’s "Stones and Bones" field course returned from northeastern Wyoming with several large rocks, including a 2.25-ton boulder, containing the fossil of a 15- to 20-foot long tyrannosaur.

Sereno, a noted paleontologist who joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1987 and has discovered new dinosaur species around the world, will display one of the smaller rocks, along with bone fragments from the tyrannosaur, for the first time at 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 9, as part of the University of Chicago’s "21st Century Science" lecture series, sponsored by the Graham School of General Studies. The Graham School offers diverse, high quality learning opportunities to intellectually curious adults and high school students.

[ADVISORY: A media availability starting at 11:30 a.m. will feature interviews with students who joined Sereno on this expedition, as they work on the 2.25-ton boulder in Sereno’s on-campus laboratory at 5620 S. Ellis Ave.]

"Stones and Bones" is a monthlong intensive program in geology and evolutionary biology at the Graham School. This year’s course featured a 12-day expedition led by Sereno and educator Gabrielle Lyon to the Lance Creek fossil area, about 200 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyo. There, students used their classroom knowledge to excavate Cretaceous Period fossils.

The tyrannosaur fossil was found on U.S. Bureau of Land Management land near where paleontologist Barnum Brown discovered the first Tyrannosaurus rex fossil a century ago. Although the location of this particular skeleton has been known since the 1950s, scientists thought it belonged to one of the more common duck-billed dinosaurs. Sereno and his students poured over the bones sticking from the surface of the rock and realized that it belonged to a predatory dinosaur, perhaps a new small tyrannosaur that lived alongside its larger cousin, T. rex.

Tickets to Sereno’s lecture at Mandel Hall, 1131 E. 57th St., on the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park, are free and available to the public. Pre-registration is required by calling the Mandel Hall box office at (773) 702-7300.

The "21st Century Science" series sponsored by the Graham School continues on Monday, Oct. 8, with Senior Research Scientist Douglas Duncan discussing "The Origin of the Elements," and on Monday, Nov. 12, with Dr. Marsha Rosner exploring "Cell Growth and Cancer." Lectures begin at 7 p.m. at the Gleacher Center, located on the north bank of the Chicago River just east of Michigan Avenue. The cost of each of these lectures is $20.

"This is a wonderful example of the quality continuing education experience the students of the University of Chicago’s Graham School receive," said Daniel Shannon, Dean of the Graham School. "The City of Chicago, and the country, for that matter, have a great resource at their fingertips, and it doesn’t require being a full-time University of Chicago student to take advantage of our renowned staff and innovative courses."

For more than 100 years, the Graham School of General Studies has extended the University’s teaching and research to more than 10,000 adult learners each year, as well as to professional and institutional leaders from the United States and around the world.

To register for or to request additional information about any of the Graham School of General Studies programs, visit the school’s Web site at www.grahamschool.uchicago.edu, or phone 1-800-997-9689 to receive a copy of "The Compleat Gargoyle" course catalog and official registration form.