Michael Joseph Ryan, Ph.D.

Coordinator of Research & Curator and Head of Vertebrate Paleontology
e-mail : mryan@cmnh.org
phone: (216)-231-4600, ext 3246

B.Sc., Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario
B.Ed., Secondary Education, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta
M.Sc., Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Ph.D., Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta

Research Associate with Canadian Museum of Nature, Dept. of Palaeobiology, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Research Associate with Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Drumheller, Alberta, Canada; Chief paleontologist with The Phaeton Group; co-editor of Kirtlandia; Fellow of the National Geographic Explorer’s Club

Areas of specialization or interest:

Systematics and paleoecology of ceratopsian (horned) dinosaurs, and the taphonomy of dinosaur bone beds; paleobiogeography and biostratigraphy of vertebrates of the Late Cretaceous of the Western Interior of North America and Asia; functional morphology of Devonian arthrodires.

Current research:

• Leader of the Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project which is designed to explore and research the systematics and paleoecology of the sedimentary package representing the transition between the faunal zones of the Alberta Belly River Group and the Montanan Two Medicine and Judith River formations
• Reconstructing the braincase anatomy of  ornithischian dinosaurs via CT imagery
• Description of at new ceratopsian taxa from the Belly River Group
• Systematic taphonomic analysis of hadrosaur and ceratopsian bone beds from the Foremost, Dinosaur Park, and Horseshoe Canyon formations of Alberta
• Evolutionary development of bony fishes across the K/T boundary of the western interior of north America
• Trophic structure of Late Cretaceous Belly River Group based on stable nitrogen isotope analyses
• Taphonomy of a Pinnacosaurus bone bed from the Nemget Formation of Mongolia
• Description of new Avimimus material from China
• Functional mechanics of the jaws of Dunkleosteous