Looking for Notable Black/African American Paleontologists and Paleoartists

[Stegotyranno420]

Greetings folks, so I got this Black history month project I got to do where you pick a notable Black person(male or female) who has made helpful contributions to the world of science, invention, or civil rights, and I wanted to do a paleontologist or artist. I was trying to find some on the Google, but all I found were results for unrelated things. So I thought, I might turn to you guys for answers, as a lot of you seem to know a thing or two about paleontologists(i was always interested in science and history, but never the scientist or historians, I mainly focused on the subject, not the contributors, so I don't know a lot about the paleontologists, only paleontology). So sorry if I seem like a freeloader, I don't want to come off as rude or entitled. So I hope I could find some notable Black paleontologists and artists.

[Loon]

I unfortunately cannot help. Popular science makes Paleontology out to still be a very White male dominated field, so those are mostly the people I'm familiar with. So, I'm interested to see where this thread goes.

[Gwangi]

Jim Gary comes to mind, he made dinosaur sculptures from old car parts. He was featured on the 1985 documentary Dinosaur! (which is on Youtube). Probably not quite what you're looking for, but he could work for your project, at least as a fallback.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gary

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/jim-garys-vehicular-dinosaurs-78895615/



EDIT: Also found Dr. Lisa White, a micropaleontologist.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/meet-dr-lisa-white-paleontologist/

https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/just-in/2014-07-25/bones-pick-uc-berkeley-paleontologist-entices-diverse

[Crackington]

I found this interesting article on the Smithsonian website about Louis Purnell, war hero, palaeontologist and space expert! Sadly the article shows he had to face and overcome racism at every turn, even in that famous museum:

https://siarchives.si.edu/history/featured-topics/African-Americans/louis-purnell

[Newt]

Do they have to be American? There is a famous Kenyan fossil collector named Kamoya Kimeu who found the Turkana Boy and many other important hominid fossils, mainly working with the Leakey family. I'm sure there are many other black paleontologists working in sub-Saharan Africa, likely in South America and the Caribbean too.

[Stegotyranno420]

Thanks everyone,
@Crackington , he seems interesting thank you,
@Newt thank you too, but my teachers said it had to be African American

[Libraraptor]

Not a palaeontologist, but an astrophysician: Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[HD-man]

"Interview with Paleontologist: David Wilcots": https://prehistoricbeastoftheweek.blogspot.com/2020/12/interview-with-paleontologist-david.html

[Stegotyranno420]

thanks
@Libraraptor , although i was aiming for paleontologists, I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson will be an interesting and fun person to learn and present about, so I will add him to my list

H @HD-man thanks to you, now my list is completed, but it would be interesting to let this thread go deeper

[Halichoeres]

Most of the Black paleontologists I know are quite young; they were excluded by one means or another for most of the history of paleontology as a discipline. Evan Johnson-Ransom is working on dinosaurs now, but as a grad student he worked on Mesozoic sharks: https://okstate.academia.edu/EvanJohnsonRansom

There's Aviwe Matiwane, a Black paleobotanist (although she's South African, so doesn't fit your rubric). https://www.womeninscience.africa/meet-aviwe-matiwane/

A friend of mine named Ben Otoo works on early tetrapods: https://coateslab.uchicago.edu/people/benotoo/

And famously, enslaved Africans were the first to recognize the fossilized teeth of extinct proboscideans for what they were, but got none of the credit. That might be worth talking about if you're talking about African Americans in paleontology.

[Stegotyranno420]

@Halichoeres thanks very much. I will definitely include that last part

[HD-man]

H @HD-man thanks to you, now my list is completed, but it would be interesting to let this thread go deeper

@Stegotyranno420 I just realized that I forgot to mention Cameron Muskelly: https://www.darwinsdoor.co.uk/interviews/talking-with-cameron-muskelly.html

[HD-man]

@Stegotyranno420 Just found out about Jordan Claytor: https://www.facebook.com/burkemuseum/posts/10159174715203064

[Stegotyranno420]

Thanks, everyone, my project was now completed and the teacher was very impressed.
Really appreciate it