Norman MacLeod
Department of Palaeontology
The Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
London SW7 5BD
United Kingdom

Norman MacLeod started out as a child. No one really knows where or why and he can't remember. It just happened.

He received as B.Sc. in Geology from the University of Missouri (1975), an M.Sc. in paleontology from Southern Methodist University (1978), and a Ph.D. in micropaleontology from the University of Texas at Dallas (1986). After completing his Ph.D. he was awarded a fellowship from the Michigan Society of Fellows for research in evolutionary micropaleontology and morphometrics at the University of Michigan. In 1989 he moved to Princeton University where he continued these studies and began looking into stratigraphical, biogeographical, and phylogenetic aspects of major extinction events. Through his work in these areas, he has made significant contributions to the punctuated-equilibrium controversy and the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction controversy, as well as being personally responsible for the development of several new morphometric data-analysis methods.

In 1993, he moved to The Natural History Museum (London) where he has been Keeper of Palaeontology since 2001. After moving to London, MacLeod added projects in paleontological informatics and electronic communications to his long-standing research interests. Prof. MacLeod is a frequent contributor to the technical palaeontological literature (over 200 articles published, including many widely-cited review papers), book reviewer, symposium organizer, and keynote speaker. He is also the author/co-author of three book-length collections of technical articles: The Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction: biotic and environmental changes (W. W. Norton, 1996, with Gerta Keller), and Morphometrics, shape and phylogenetics (Taylor & Francis, 2002, with Peter Forey), and Automated taxon identification in systematics: theory, approaches, and applications (CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, 2007). Prof. MacLeod has appeared many times on television and radio programmes, and in newspaper/magazine interviews discussing paleontological topics.

Although he doesn’t have as much time to do research as he would like these days, his first love has been, and will likely remain, studying the morphology of fossils and developing new ways to ask them questions about past worlds.