Welcome / Bienvenidos!

Hi there! I'm Steve Poropat, and I'm a postdoctoral fellow in palaeontology at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, working in conjunction with the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton, Queensland and Melbourne Museum.

I've started this blog to document my two month trip around Argentina, which officially started last night (when I arrived) but won't really kick into gear until Monday, when I start work at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales in Buenos Aires. This trip was made possible by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, who awarded me with a Churchill Fellowship in 2017. Becoming a Churchill Fellow is a privilege and an honour for which I am exceedingly grateful. 

Full disclosure: this is not my first visit to Argentina! I have been fortunate enough to visit twice before: in 2013 (Buenos Aires, La Plata, Tucumán, Trelew and Comodoro Rivadavia) and 2014 (Mendoza). I have already made firsthand observations of several Argentinian sauropod specimens, including Saltasaurus, Epachthosaurus, and Mendozasaurus - I even published a redescription of the latter (with four colleagues) earlier this year. However, this time around I will not be observing sauropods exclusively; instead, the main focus of this trip will be non-hadrosaurid ornithischian dinosaurs. 

I intend to keep a running tally of the specimens I observe each day (with photos), and will welcome any questions along the way!