Scott D. Sampson

Scott Donald Sampson (born April 22, 1961) is a Canadian-American paleontologist and science communicator. Sampson was the Executive Director of California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, California from September 2019 to May 2026. Previously, he was previously Vice President of Research & Collections and Chief Curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Sampson is notable for his work on the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs Majungasaurus and Masiakasaurus and his extensive research into the Late Cretaceous Period, particularly in Madagascar. He is also known as the host of the “Dinosaur Discoveries” segments on the PBS Kids show Dinosaur Train.

Background Sampson was born in the neighborhood of Dunbar-Southlands in Vancouver, British Columbia. His father Donald Louis Gilmour Sampson was a social psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. He died of colon cancer when Scott was 13 years old. He attended Point Grey Secondary School. Sampson graduated from the University of Toronto in 1993 and worked for a year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Then he worked for five years as an assistant professor of anatomy at the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine on Long Island. Utah Museum of Natural History where Sampson has been a curator since 1999. As seen in the photograph these former exhibits were dismantled in 2011 when the museum moved to the new Rio Tinto Center and changed name to Natural History Museum of Utah. Sampson is featured as the host of the “Dinosaur Discoveries” segments on the PBS television series, Dinosaur Train. In one segment, he mentions that he discovered some of Masiakasaurus’ first bones and named it. In 2003, he hosted Dinosaur Planet, a series of four animated nature documentaries which aired on the Discovery Channel. The series was narrated by Christian Slater. His first book, Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life was published by University of California Press in 2009. The book, aimed at the general public reconstructs the odyssey of the dinosaurs from their origins on the supercontinent of Pangaea, and explores the way in which dinosaurs ecologically interacted in an expansive web of relationships with other organisms and their natural environment, underscoring "paradigm shifts", which conceptualize the nature of the dinosaurian world.

Research Aside from his research conducted in museums, Sampson has undertaken paleontological fieldwork in countries such as Zimbabwe, South Africa and Madagascar as well as the United States and Canada. In 1995 he made a phylogenetic analysis of the Centrosaurinae and Ceratopsidae in the state of Montana and produced two papers on these horned dinosaurs of the Late Cretaceous. Sampson also published a paper documenting the discovery of the first Tyrannosaurus specimen found in Utah, as well as the first evidence of coexistence between Tyrannosaurus and sauropods. Majungasaurus. Sampson has studied fossils of this dinosaur in Madagascar In 1998 he conducted thorough paleontological studies into the Cretaceous period in Madagascar and published several papers on it. These include Predatory dinosaur remains from Madagascar: Implications for the Cretaceous biogeography of Gondwana. and The theropodan ancestry of birds: New evidence from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar, both published in 1998. In 2001 he returned to Madagascar and conducted some important research into the evolution of Gondwanan theropods, publishing a paper on it, entitled A bizarre predatory dinosaur from Madagascar: implications for the evolution of Gondwanan theropods. In 2007 he published Dental morphology and variation in Majungasaurus crenatissimus (Theropoda: Abelisauridae) from the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar. 2013 Nasutoceratops titusi gen. et sp. nov. Sampson, Lund, Loewen, Farke, & Clayton 2010 Kosmoceratops richardsoni gen. et sp. nov. Sampson, Loewen, Farke, Roberts, Forster, Smith, & Titus 2010 Coahuilaceratops magnacuerna gen. et sp. nov. Loewen, Sampson, Lund, Farke, Aguillón-Martínez, De Leon, Rodríguez-de la Rosa, Getty, & Eberth 2007 Gryposaurus monumentensis sp. nov. Gates & Sampson 2007 Velafrons coahuilensis gen. et sp. nov. Gates, Sampson, Delgado De Jesús, Zanno, Eberth, Hernandez-Rivera, Aguillón Martínez, & Kirkland 2005 Hagryphus giganteus gen. et sp. nov. Zanno & Sampson 2005 Falcarius utahensis gen. et sp. nov. Kirkland, Zanno, Sampson, Clark, & DeBlieux 1998 Vorona berivotrensis gen. et sp. nov. Forster, Chiappe, Krause, & Sampson