Lectures

Project Exploration delivers customized educational and motivational programming tailored to your company’s specific needs. We will work with you to develop a unique experience that includes a combination of keynote lectures by Dr. Paul Sereno or Gabrielle Lyon.  Let us put our expertise in the field of paleontology, geology, scientific arts, and leading educational pedagogy to work for you.

Paul Sereno (right) with the African pterosaur. Photo © M. Hettwer

Paul Sereno, president and cofounder of Project Exploration, teaches paleontology, evolution, and human anatomy at the University of Chicago. As one of National Geographic's Explorers-in-Residence, Sereno has discovered dinosaurs on five continents. A behind-the-scenes museum tour as a child opened his eyes to a life of science, art, and adventure. Sereno earned a doctorate in geology at Columbia University and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. His field work began in 1988 in Argentina, where his team discovered the earliest dinosaurs to roam the Earth, Herrerasaurus and Eoraptor. In the early 1990's, his attention shifted to the Sahara, and the search for Africa's lost world of dinosaurs. There, Sereno and his team have discovered and named a number of new species, including: the 70-foot-long plant-eater Jobaria, the huge, T. rex-sized meat-eater Carcharodontosaurus, and the world's largest crocodile, the 40-foot-long Sarcosuchus, dubbed SuperCroc. Other expeditions have taken Sereno to India and Mongolia.

Presentation Topic:

• Dinosaurs on Drifting Continents
  Walk alongside Dr. Paul Sereno as he takes you back more than 100 million years to ancient Africa where he and his team have been unearthing Africa's dinosaurs in the world's largest desert. Hear first-hand how a leading scientist answers some of the most fundamental questions about how the earth and its inhabitants evolved over millions of years.
  
  

Gabrielle Lyon, during the 2000 Expedition in Niger Photo © M. Hettwer

Gabrielle Lyon, "Why do I work for social justice by addressing the issue of access to science? Because I believe it may be one of the most dynamic vehicles available to us for changing people's lives. You don't know what people are going to be - or who they may become. Project Exploration allows me to work to ensure that all kids - particularly those least likely to have successful experiences with science or school - have opportunities to explore their own potential and the world around them."

As the cofounder and executive director of Project Exploration, Gabrielle Lyon combines social justice activism with a passion for informal science education. Gabrielle Lyon spent her childhood in New Mexico and attended high school in New Jersey. Lyon earned both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in history from the University of Chicago.

In 1994 Lyon was selected to be a Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, in Montgomery, AL where she worked as a writer and researcher for the education magazine Teaching Tolerance, a national forum for educators to discuss tolerance, diversity and justice in and beyond the classroom. In 1996 Lyon returned to Chicago to serve as the Outreach Coordinator at the Small Schools Workshop at the University of Illinois at Chicago and direct the School Change Institute.

Lyon's honors include representing the International Association of Educators for World Peace as a delegate to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland addressing the U.N. Subcommittee on Human Rights on "The Prevention of Racism and the Protection of Minorities" in 1995, and, in 1999, being recognized as one of "Tomorrow's Leaders Today" by Public Allies. In 2004 she received, with paleontologist Paul Sereno, the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Outstanding Community Leaders Award. In 2007 she was recognized as one of the Community Renewal Society's "35 Under 35."

Lyon has participated in seven international expeditions to Africa, China and South America, and in 1995, discovered the predatory dinosaur Deltadromeus. Lyon cofounded Project Exploration, a nonprofit science education organization, in 1999 with Paul Sereno.

Lyon is currently working on a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago and is the mother of one child.

Presentation Topic:

• Africa's Dinosaurs and How They Came to Life
  This hour-long, interactive presentation takes guests into the heart of the Sahara Desert in search for hundred-million-year-old fossils. Presented by Gabrielle Lyon, veteran member of seven international paleontology expeditions to Africa, South America and Asia, and co-founder and Executive Director of Project Exploration, "Africa's Dinosaurs" provides the audience with a first-hand account of what is involved in real-life dinosaur expeditions and the science behind the discoveries.
  
  
• Unearthing the Hidden Curriculum
  What does it take to recruit and retain minority youth and girls to science? Project Exploration tackles the urgent need to ensure access to science for minority youth and girls. Executive Director Gabrielle Lyon will share Project Exploration's award-winning model for recruiting and retaining minority youth and girls in science - and propose a picture of what the lessons Project Exploration is learning suggest for creating an effective science learning environment in schools, out of school time settings, and across school systems.