Zhe-Xi Luo (Chinese 骆泽喜; pinyin: Luò Zéxǐ) is an American paleontologist of Chinese origin, specializing in

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, ...

paleontology, particularly mammal evolution,

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

, and

systematics Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...

Background

Born in China in 1958, he came to the United States in 1982 as one of the first Chinese students. Under the Sino-US agreement, students were expected to return to their homeland after graduation, but after the 1989

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

, US President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

agreed that around 80,000 Chinese students would remain in the United States. Zhe-Xi Luo and his wife were in this group. Luo gained his Bachelor's in Geology, Stratigraphy and Paleontology in 1982 from

Nanjing University Nanjing University (NJU; ) is a national public research university in Nanjing, Jiangsu. It is a member of C9 League and a Class A Double First Class University designated by the Chinese central government. NJU has two main campuses: the Xianl ...

's Department of Geology, before completing his PhD in Paleontology at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, Museum of Paleontology in 1989. He then completed a

postdoctoral fellowship A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

in Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology at

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 ...

, Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1991. He currently has a lab as Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy.

Research

In 1983 Luo met Polish paleontologist

Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (25 April 1925 – 13 March 2015) was a Polish paleobiologist. In the mid-1960s, she led a series of Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert. She was the first woman to serve on the executive commit ...

, and they co-authored many books and scientific publications. He has since published prolifically and is one of the leading experts in mammal evolution, particularly

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 ...

mammals Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

. He has worked extensively on the origins of mammal ear and jaw anatomy, and has been involved in key research highlighting their unexpected ecological diversity. Luo is known recently for his work on new mammal specimens from China including ''

Docofossor ''Docofossor'' is an extinct mammaliaform (a docodont) from the Jurassic period. Its remains have been recovered in China from 160 million years old rocks. It appears to have been the earliest-known subterranean mammaliaform, with adaptations re ...

'' and '' Agilodocodon'' and '' Microdocodon'', and the earliest eutherian mammal, ''

Juramaia ''Juramaia'' is an extinct genus of very basal eutherian mammal known from the Late Jurassic ( Oxfordian stage) deposits of western Liaoning, China. It is a small shrew-like mammal with a body length of approximately 70–100 mm, making it ...

''.''Zhe-xi Luo on Jurassic Mothers from China and the Origins of Mammals'' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWz3R4J4OZA He works in close collaboration with researchers around the world, including at the

Beijing Museum of Natural History The Beijing Museum of Natural History (BMNH; ) is located at 126 Tian Qiao Nan Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, 100050, and is the most popular natural history museum in China.Haramiyavia ''Haramiyavia'' ("thief grandmother" from Arabic الحرامية (al ḥarāmiyah), "thief, ''Haramiya''" + Latin avia, "grandmother") is a genus of synapsid in the clade Haramiyida that existed about 200 million years ago in the Rhaetian stage ...

''.

Selected publications

*Luo ZX, Yuan CX, Meng QJ, Ji Q A. 2011. Jurassic eutherian mammal and divergence of marsupials and placentals. ''Nature''. 2011 Aug 24; 476(7361): 442–5. *Luo ZX, Ji Q, Yuan CX. 2007. Convergent dental adaptations in pseudo-tribosphenic and tribosphenic mammals. ''Nature''. 450(7166): 93–7. *Luo ZX, Ji Q, Wible JR, Yuan CX. 2003. An Early Cretaceous tribosphenic mammal and metatherian evolution. ''Science''. 302(5652):1934–40. *Luo ZX, Crompton AW, Sun AL 2001. A new mammaliaform from the early Jurassic and evolution of mammalian characteristics. ''Science''. 292(5521):1535–40.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Luo, Zhe-Xi 1958 births Living people American paleontologists Nanjing University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of Chicago faculty Place of birth missing (living people) Date of birth missing (living people) Chinese emigrants to the United States Vertebrate paleontologists