Melanie A.D. During

Melanie During (Langedijk, 13 June 1989) is a Dutch paleontologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. As a student, she participated in the excavation of Triceratops fossils in Wyoming, including one specimen, nicknamed "Dirk", which was prepared and put on display at Naturalis Biodiversity Center. Her book De laatste lente van de dinosauriërs (The Last Spring of the Dinosaurs) was published by HarperCollins in 2023.

Work During began her education in the Dutch vocational secondary school system (VMBO) before progressing through HAVO and VWO to university. Using synchrotron micro-computed tomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, she examined the fossils non-destructively at microscopic resolution. Her analyses showed that the fish died during their annual growth season, indicating that the Chicxulub impact occurred during spring (in the Northern Hemisphere; autumn in the Southern Hemisphere). The findings helped explain why some species became extinct while others survived the event. She published the results in Nature and received the Escher Prize of the Royal Geological and Mining Society of the Netherlands (KNGMG) for the best master's thesis in the Earth sciences. She is currently a lecturer at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.