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e to try and learn what we can and do effective science pushing for something that may even be inappropriate if it forces people to include something they are not comfortable doing or requires a major amount of work or to bring in additional collaborators or means restructuring the paper isn t a reasonable request at the best of times when that doesn t actually improve the paper and will be rapidly superseded it makes it a doubly inappropriate request it s an apparent reflex that a new species needs a new phylogeny to be fair i have got all these papers through without needing one so it s not like there is a ban in play but it is clearly a pervasive attitude that i seem to have to fight against every time and i wonder how many phylogenies have been run and published because either the referees or editors insisted or the authors thought the paper would not get through without it it s difficult enough to do good taxonomy these days without adding unnecessary barriers and i hope this is something that can be resisted yes you can use phylogenies for lots of other things too but all the data defining nodes is most useful for this exact thing also it s notable that when anyone publishes a new specimen of a known species it s assumed that the diagnostic traits are sufficient to place the new specimen with that species no one insists on a phylogeny to make sure they come out together with the implication that such traits are a good indicator of what is and isn t a species except apparently when one is new when suddenly they are not enough on their own how do i become a paleontologist published 17 02 2026 uncategorized closed this is a revised and updated version of an old post of mine that s now nearly 10 years old so it seemed sensible to give it a polish and re release it into the wild so what do you do to become a paleontologist this question comes around and around again online and i still regularly get e mails asking exactly this from people who are interested in becoming palaeontologists or getting into paleontology there is plenty of good advice out there in various forms but even having a post on this before and doing a whole podcast episode on it terrible lizards tls07e06 working with dinosaurs has not stopped the emails to me or question appearing online for anyone who has come to this blog because of this post and doesn t know me i am a palaeontologist working on dinosaur behaviour and have been for over two decades i got my phd back in 2005 though i m british and based in the uk i ve had palaeontology jobs in ireland germany and china and i ve got numerous colleagues in the us canada all over europe and in places like japan brazil mexico australia and south africa that i have talked to about working there so i have a decent picture of what issues are relevant wherever you are from and where you want to be there will of course be things i don t cover below or that vary significantly e g the duration of various degree programs and what they specialise in etc but this should cover the basics hopefully this will help answer the major questions and clear up some big misunderstandings and offer some advice to get into palaeontology there are also some harsh truths here but i m trying to be open and honest about the realities of trying to make a career of this competitive branch of science so with that in mind what do you think a palaeontologist does a lot of people asking about getting into the field seem to be seduced by the apparent image of the field as a glamorous science there s fieldwork in exciting places media coverage you can be on tv in movies new discoveries naming new species and generally being a bit cooler than the average biochemist or experimental physicist but if this is what you think it s actually pretty misleading you are only seeing the very top people and most of us don t get much time in the field or travelling in a given year and spend most of their time in an office and while that might include writing papers there s plenty of grant writing admin teaching and less exciting stuff i rarely get into the field and probably 90 of my time is spent teaching and doing admin work for my university a fair chunk of my research and outreach output is done in my own time taking up evenings and weekend and even vacations i don t get to sit around and play with fossils all day and there are very very few people with senior enough research positions who get perhaps even 50 of their time to do real research and fieldwork there will always be paperwork and admin that needs doing and even writing research papers or planning a field season can be really quite tedious at times real joy comes from discoveries in the field or in research but these are moments you work for there s not a constant stream of them so it s worth making sure you have a realistic impression of real life as a palaeontologist and ask yourself if you have realistic expectations of what the job might entail and where you may end up that said do you know what jobs are available palaeontology tends to be thought of as people digging up fossils and then maybe researching on them and or teaching about them palaeontologists are scientists and they work in museums or universities that s not wrong but it masks a pretty wide range of careers and employers it goes back to my point above there are lots of jobs for palaeontologists or people working in the field of palaeontology and in addition to researchers and lecturers there are science educators museum curators and managers exhibition designers specimen preparators photographers science writers palaeoartists and consultants of various kinds people can work for media outlets national parks and other government bodies companies that mount or mould specimens that monitor building sites and roads for uncovered fossils and others one of these might be more what you are interested in you don t have to end up as the senior researcher in your national museum to have made it and similarly that can mean you have a very different set of requirements to get a different kind of job you pretty much have to have a phd to teach at a university but you can potentially get a job working preparing fossils with little more than a good high school education in some museums experience and engagement with the field can always lead to you changing paths you can start off as an artist or preparator and end up writing papers or even going a phd and i know of people who started out in science without a degree or at least a relevant one that are now full professors or have some senior palaeontological position there are also lots of opportunities in various places to be a volunteer and you certainly don t need a phd or even a degree to get involved in scientific research i know of high schoolers who have managed to publish papers some drive and knowledge can go a long way and there are people who have an entire palaeontological research career as a hobby with no formal background who have worked their way into being a researcher alongside their regular job there are opportunities to engage in the science without actually holding a professorship at a big university if some of the information coming up is a bit daunting there are options and alternatives do you know what the job market is like despite the above listed variety of jobs out there there are still not a huge number of jobs in palaeontology and fewer still for academic positions worse there a lot of people who want them if you are desperate to get into an especially sexy area like dinosaurs or carnivorans then it s even worse for every academic job there are likely to be 10 well qualified candidates and quite possibly 20 or more and these are all people who have held at least one postdoctoral position maybe 1 available for every 5 people and have a phd maybe 1 available for every 20 or 30 people who want to do it it s very common for people to slowly drift out of the field simply because they cannot find a job even after years and years of training and experience and a good record of research i know of colleagues who did their phd around the same time i did and never found a permanent position others are stuck in jobs they would rather not be in hoping for something better and sadly when finances are tight palaeontology is often a field which suffers cuts more than other sciences we are seeing closures of museums and research institutes at the moment as with the point above i m not saying this to put people off though i m sure it does but it is worth knowing the reality of the situation getting on a degree program even coming top of the class will in no way ensure you get on a doctorate program let alone in the field you want to study let alone a job at the end of it do you know what the career trajectory is as noted above this can vary enormously depending on what you may want to try and do but i ll focus here on academic positions since that s what most people do want to do and it s generally the longest and most involved pathway first off you will need an undergraduate degree increasingly this tends to be in the biological sciences though there are lots of people with a background in geology you ll need to know at least some of each but it s perfectly possible to forge a palaeontology career depending on what you do with a very heavily biased knowledge in favour of one or the other my degree was in zoology and i know extremely little about different rocks their formation or what it means most people don t specialise seriously until later in their career so don t worry about doing one and assuming it s a problem and don t get hung up on doing a palaeontology degree there simply aren t many of them about and it s not a deal at all if you have not done one with a good degree you can get onto a masters program which will obviously increase your knowledge further and improve your skills and then onto a doctorate which will be anything from 3 6 years depending where you do it it could take a year or two to get onto a given program if there is something specific you want or of course you may need to work to get the funds necessary for tuition fees etc most people will also then go on a take one or two positions as a postdoctoral researcher or similar before finding a permanent job some of these are short term a year or so and some can be much longer 5 year special research fellowships are rare and great if you can get them but a one or two year contract is more common you may end up taking some short term jobs parental leave cover or for a sabbatical etc and can bounce around on contracts for a while before landing a permanent position all told it s likely to be at least 10 years and could easily be 15 or 20 between starting at university and a first year undergraduate and having a permanent position at a university as an academic this can also involve moving round the country or between countries and continents to find a job i went from bristol to london to bristol in the uk then munich beijing dublin london bristol again for only 3 months and then settled in london across 18 years and all the hassle and expense that entails again if you are dead set on working on taxon group x at university y be aware that it s likely to be a very very long shot or needs to be a very long term career goal how do you start assuming that this is still something you think you want to go for how do you actually start on the road to becoming a palaeontologist well the short version is to go to university and do well that s what i did at least in part because i wasn t any more interested in palaeo than some other fields in biology and i kinda drifted this way this is really common even people who start absolutely dedicated to working on one particular area get sidetracked by new interests or simply the available opportunities if you are looking ahead even to that then just focus on your schoolwork to get the best qualifications you can palaeontology is a science and these days you need some maths and computer skills and the more the better being good and maths specifically statistics and programming will be of far far more use to you at university and beyond in a career than learning the names of dinosaur species or the exact age of a given formation other basic subjects like english to improve your writing and communications skills will be useful too biology on its own will only get you so far of course with so much more information out there now online there are much better ways to get started and to learn something about possible careers universities current research museums to go to etc etc you may be surprised to find that a what of what you know is not that relevant or important for getting into the field knowing a whole bunch of facts isn t a bad thing but understanding principles being good at absorbing knowledge and interpreting things and coming up with ideas and testing them are far more important you can always look up a fact if you forgot it or don t know it but if you can t effectively come up with ideas to test collect good data and organise your thoughts and communicate them then it s obviously hard to do good science learning things like names of species and times and places they are from is obviously a good start but don t think it s a massive head start on potential peers obviously you ll want to focus on palaeontology but biology and geology sources are important too a wider knowledge base will be better than a narrow one so in sort of an order that will lead to you learning and understanding more and getting better read online there are tons of good sources out there follow people on blusky join facebook groups listen to podcasts read blogs etc etc and that s before the absolute wealth of information on wikipedia that also then links to other sources including research papers absorb information on biology geology current research trends the history of the subject and the fundamentals of science engage and discuss things with people read books build up your knowledge base with some good popular science books and then if you can access them get hold of some university level books that are introductory for subjects you want to engage in there are good books out there on palaeontology generally and various branches like invertebrate palaeo mammals human origins etc public libraries can often get even very technical works in for free and there are others online some books can be very cheap second hand i ve got some suggested ones below get more practical experience and engage with the field and fossils if you can visit museums and go fossil hunting if you can volunteer at a museum and get some experience and training no matter what form it might be it will be useful but again having experience in the field won t be a major advantage to get into a given degree program compared to understanding things read papers large chunks of the scientific literature are online and avail...