one of the "100 Top Science Stories of 2001". In China, Lacovara was part of a team that discovered multiple skeletons of the Early Cretaceous (Aptian-Albian) aquatic bird Gansus yumenensis. Gansus filled an important gap in bird evolution, and the team published their result in Science in 2006. Lacovara was also a member of the team that discovered Suzhousaurus megatherioides, a therizinosauroid from the Lower Cretaceous of the Gobi Desert of China. Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan University Lacovara is the founding Director of the Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan University, a 65-acre property in southern New Jersey that preserves a K/Pg bonebed of vertebrate fossils and serves as a site for STEM education and outreach. Explorers Club Medal In 2019 Lacovara received the Explorers Club's highest honor, the Explorers Club Medal , awarded for "extraordinary contributions directly in the field of exploration, scientific research, or to the welfare of humanity.". Previous recipients include Roy Chapman Andrews, Neil Armstrong, Jane Goodall, Edward O. Wilson, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Selected talks by Kenneth Lacovara La Ciudad de las Ideas, Puebla, Mexico - 2016 INK, Goa, India - 2016 TED Summit, Banff, Canada - 2016 TED, Vancouver, Canada - 2016 NASA New Horizons Flyby, Baltimore, USA - 2015 TEDx Drexel, Philadelphia, USA - 2015 Linda Hall Library of Science, Kansas City, USA - 2013 iNatura, Dornbern, Austria - 2010 Explorers Club Centennial Gala - 2004 Publications Why Dinosaurs Matter. New York: Simon & Schuster/TED Books, 2017. - winner of a Nautilus Silver Book Award. References External links TED Profile - Kenneth Lacovara Edelman Fossil Park of Rowan university page Linda Hall Library of Science lecture: Next-Gen Paleontology Discovery Channel, Daily Planet: Cretaceous Jersey Shore Philadelphia Inquirer: Ancient Sea Turtle Discovered in New Jersey Philadelphia Inquirer: Reconstructing a Fossil Turtle Living people American paleontologists Mainland Regional High School (New Jersey) alumni People from Linwood, New Jersey People from Swedesboro, New Jersey Rowan University alumni Scientists from New Jersey University of Maryland, College Park alumni University of Delaware alumni Fellows of the Explorers Club 1961 births