Patricia Vickers-Rich

Patricia Arlene Vickers-Rich (born 11 July 1944), also known as Patricia Rich, is an Australian Professor of Palaeontology and Palaeobiology, who researches the environmental changes that have impacted Australia (including the ancient super continent, Gondwana) and how this shaped the evolution of Australia’s fauna and flora.

Education Vickers-Rich was born and educated in the United States. In her early career, she worked as a zooarchaeologist at the Nevada State Museum and research assistant in palaeontology while she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in paleontology at the University of Berkeley. and currently as emeritus professor in palaeontology.

She was the founding director of the Monash Science Centre (now PrimeSCI! at Swinburne University of Technology), where she continues as a director. She is also a professor of palaeobiology at the Swinburne University of Technology, and associate professor in palaeontology at Deakin University.

In addition to her roles at Monash, between 1976 and 2021, Vickers-Rich has held positions as vice president and president of the Australian Association of Palaeonologists, research associate at the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, research associate in vertebrate palaeontology and ornithology at the Museums Victoria and research associate in the Laboratory of Precambrian Organisms at the Paleontological Institute in Moscow.

Research Vickers-Rich is an expert in the origin and evolution of Australasian vertebrates and their environments over the past 400 million years. She has special interest in Australian avian fossils, and has led research teams to investigate the origin and development of terrestrial vertebrates and birds around the world, including in Africa, Southeast Asia, South Pacific Islands, Antarctica, Russia, South America, and Saudi Arabia.

She, along with husband Tom Rich, has led a major effort since the 1970s to locate new fossil localities in her home state of Victoria, Australia. Together the couple described the dinosaur genera Leaellynasaura and Timimus, naming them after their daughter and son, Leaellyn and Tim Rich, respectively. Their field work in Victoria informs their research on interpreting changing climate and biogeographic affinity of the biota of Gondwana during the past 120 million years.

Vickers-Rich's work has gained her election to numerous prestigious organisations. In 2015 she was elected as a Bragg member of the Royal Institute of Australia, she was made a member of the Explorers Club, New York, in 1998, and elected a member of the International Academy of Sciences of Nature and Society Moscow Branch in 1996.