Perfil

He began his scientific career in 1982, studying fossil vertebrates. He completed a master’s degree at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and a doctorate at Columbia University (program with the American Museum of Natural History). He organized the first workshop (Pittsburgh, 1995) and the first symposium on pterosaurs (New York, 1996). He participated in the organization of several scientific congresses, such as the 31st International Geological Congress (Rio de Janeiro, 2000) and the 2nd Latin American Congress of Vertebrate Paleontology (Rio de Janeiro, 2005), of which he was president.
He joined the National Museum/UFRJ in 1997, where he was Director (2018-2022), and (2022-2026). Since 2007 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. He coordinated the exhibition “In the Time of the Dinosaurs”, the most visited temporary scientific exhibition in Brazil (220,000 visitors). He chairs the Curatorial Committee responsible for the content of the National Museum’s new exhibitions.
He conducts research into fossil reptiles. He has described 84 species, having studied material from Mongolia, Iran, Morocco, Lebanon, China, Argentina, Portugal, Chile, Venezuela, the United States, Australia, Antarctica and Spain, among others. He has organized and/or taken part in expeditions to different parts of the world, such as the Atacama (Chile) and Kerman (Iran) deserts, Liaoning (China) and James Ross Island in Antarctica. In Brazil, he has collected from the north to the south of the country.He has more than 1,472 publications (abstracts, editorials and popular articles), with more than 330 original articles published in the main journals in the field.
He has received several awards and honors, having been elected Full Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, Foreign Member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences (Portugal), Honorary Member of the New York Paleontological Society and the Sociedad Paleontologica de Chile, and Associate Researcher at the American Museum of Natural History and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (China). He received the award from The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He was inducted into the Commander Class of the National Order of Scientific Merit (2008) and the Grand Cross Class (2018). He is a CNPq 1A researcher and coordinator of INCT PALEOVERT.