Nicholas C. Fraser
Virginia Museum of Natural History
Martinsville, Virginia 24112
USA

Nick received his Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland in 1984. He spent the next six years at Cambridge University as a fellow of Girton College studying Triassic reptiles. In 1990 he became the Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History (VMNH) in Martinsville, Virginia. His research program now centers on terrestrial vertebrate faunal change across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary. Just 30 minutes from the museum is a unique Triassic locality, the Virginia Solite Quarry.  It has produced remains of curious gliding and swimming reptiles together with a wonderful diversity of insects. Over the past few years Nick has been collaborating with David Grimaldi, Vladimir Blagoderov, Paul Olsen and Brian Axsmith on the remarkable fauna and flora of the site. 

Nick is also very interested in public education, and for the past seven summers, he has taken teachers, students and other volunteers to the badlands of Bighorn County, Wyoming where VMNH is excavating a very extensive Jurassic dinosaur bone bed.  Nick serves as an editor for the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 

An avid supporter of Glasgow Rangers Football Club, Nick still plays soccer but accepts that his chances of playing for Scotland are probably over!