Hans-Dieter Sues (born January 13, 1956) is a German-born American

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

who is Senior Scientist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in Washington, DC. He received his education at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (

University of Mainz The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (german: Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) is a public research university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg since 1946. With approximately 32,000 stu ...

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

, and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(Ph.D., 1984). Before assuming his present position, Sues worked at the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and at the

Carnegie Museum of Natural History The Carnegie Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as CMNH) is a natural history museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie in 1896. Housing some 22 million ...

in Pittsburgh. He is interested in the diversity, paleoecology, and evolutionary history of

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

and

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

tetrapods, especially archosaurian reptiles and cynodont

therapsid Therapsida is a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals, their ancestors and relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including limbs that were oriented more ...

s, and the history of biology and paleontology. Sues has discovered numerous new

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s and other extinct terrestrial

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

s in Paleozoic and Mesozoic continental strata in North America and Europe. He has authored or co-authored over 150 articles and book chapters on

vertebrate paleontology Vertebrate paleontology is the subfield of paleontology that seeks to discover, through the study of fossilized remains, the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord. It also tries to connect, by us ...

and

paleoecology Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...

. Sues has written ''The Rise of Reptiles'' (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) and ''Triassic Life on Land: The Great Transition'' (with N. C. Fraser; Columbia University Press, 2010). He has edited ''Evolution of Herbivory in Terrestrial Vertebrates'' (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000) and co-edited ''Terrestrial Ecosystems through Time'' (with A. K. Behrensmeyer et al.; Univ. of Chicago Press, 1992), ''In the Shadow of the Dinosaurs: Early Mesozoic Tetrapods'' (with N. C. Fraser; Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), ''Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution'' (with J. S. Anderson; Indiana Univ. Press, 2007), and ''Terrestrial Conservation Lagerstätten: Windows into the Evolution of Life on Land'' (with N. C. Fraser; Dunedin Academic Press, 2017). He is also active in promoting the value of natural history collections for addressing major questions in current science. Sues was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

in 2003 and a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

in 1998. The pachycephalosaur ''

Hanssuesia ''Hanssuesia'' is a genus of pachycephalosaurid dinosaurs from the late Cretaceous period. It lived in what is now Alberta and Montana, and contains the single species ''Hanssuesia sternbergi''. ''Hanssuesia'' is based on a skull dome originally ...

'' is named for him.

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sues, Hans-Dieter American paleontologists Harvard University alumni German emigrants to the United States Living people Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada 1956 births

Selected works

See also

References