page_title: Scott D. Sampson
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Scott D. Sampson / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Cast of the "Huntington mammoth" Columbian mammoth, Utah Museum of Natural History, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
context_page_description: Scott Donald Sampson is a Canadian paleontologist and science communicator. Dr. Sampson is currently the President and CEO of Science World in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was previously Vice President of Research & Collections and Chief Curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Sampson is notable for his work on the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs Majungasaurus and Masiakasaurus and his extensive research into the Late Cretaceous Period, particularly in Madagascar. He is also known as the presenter of the PBS Kids show Dinosaur Train.
context_section_description: Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sampson studied for a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Toronto. For his doctorate he produced a thesis on two newly found species of ceratopsids, dated to  the Late Cretaceous period in Montana and  the growth and function of ceratopsid horns and frills. Sampson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1993 and worked for a year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Then he worked for five years as an assistant professor of anatomy at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine on Long Island. In 1999 he accepted positions as assistant professor in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Utah Museum of Natural History (nowadays called the Natural History Museum of Utah and relocated in the new Rio Tinto Center as of 2011). Sampson resided in California at this time, but continued his research  with the Utah museum as a research curator. In February 2013, Sampson took a position as Vice President of Research and Collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
  Sampson is featured as "Dr. Scott the paleontologist" on the PBS television series, Dinosaur Train. In this television series he mentions he gave Masiakasaurus its name and also mentions on a separate episode of The Dinosaur Train that he participated in naming Kosmoceratops. In 2003 he hosted Dinosaur Planet,  a series of four animated nature documentaries which aired on the Discovery Channel. The series was narrated by Christian Slater. His latest book, Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life was published by University of California Press in 2009. The book, aimed at the general public reconstructs the odyssey of the dinosaurs from their origins on the supercontinent of Pangaea, and explores the way in which dinosaurs ecologically interacted in an expansive web of relationships with other organisms and their natural environment, underscoring "paradigm shifts", which conceptualize the nature of the dinosaurian world.
caption: Utah Museum of Natural History where Sampson has been a curator since 1999. As seen in the photograph these former exhibits were dismantled in 2011 when the museum moved to the new Rio Tinto Center and changed name to Natural History Museum of Utah.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD870 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2015:04:27 12:24:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "232", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1198", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7242", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/13", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:11:16 13:36:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:11:16 13:36:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "59/16", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "23/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3207", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2016", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3264", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2448", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1048", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "43520/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2448000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "18fcd38164562f24f8d8d5e48e4a7999"}