David Weishampel is a paleontologist and a professor at the Hopkins School of Medicine. Though he only teaches one class for undergraduates—simply titled “Dinosaurs”—his class is widely known and extremely popular. Currently, he is working on a book, Transylvania Dinosaurs, which will be coming out this April. The News-Letter decided to sit down with Weishampel to discuss his passion for paleontology and his travels to the farthest reaches of the world in search of dinosaur bones.
The News-Letter (N-L): Where did you grow up?
David Weishampel (DW): I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio.
N-L: What subjects were you most interested in in high school?
DW: I took science things, Biology, Chemistry and Physics. I did take art in junior high though, and I liked it a lot!
N-L: Which schools did you attend and in which careers were you interested?
DW: Well, I’ve wanted to be a dinosaur paleontologist ever since I was probably seven years old. I still have the same enthusiasm, but I have a little bit more intellectual perspective now than when I was seven. I went to Ohio State as an undergraduate and I went to University of Toronto as a masters’ student and I went to the University of Pennsylvania as a PhD student.
N-L: So what did you do after you received your PhD?
DW: Each schooling went in turn so I didn’t take any time off from my bachelors to my masters to my PhD. When I finished up by PhD in Philadelphia, I had a post-doctoral fellowship in Tubingen, Germany and I learned about a lot of different sorts of things there, including how to do history of science research. So I was fourteen months there and then two years in Miami, FL where I taught at Florida International University. I’ve been here for twenty-five years.
N-L: Which classes have you taught?
DW: Very few here at Homewood, although I have taught the dinosaur class every year for several years. I used to teach evolutionary biology class, an evening class, when I first got here.
N-L: Which other campuses do you teach at?
DW: I’ve always had my primary teaching at the medical school, where I am now and have been or the past twenty-five years. I teach the human anatomy course for the first year medical students.
N-L: What was your favorite class to teach?
DW: I really like to teach the dinosaur class but I enjoy teaching them all. There is something about the interaction I have with the students and the students have with me that makes all sorts of feelings a lot of fun. I intend to have fun because that is one of the greatest things you can do in life-- have a good time.
N-L: Are you doing any research besides teaching?
DW: Yes, I have been busy doing research that comes of fieldwork in Montana, collecting dinosaurs in Montana, collecting dinosaurs in Western Romania, which is also known as Transylvania and I have done fieldwork in Central Hungary and in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. So that’s where my original data comes from along with other people’s collections through the past century. This takes me around the world to different museums.
N-L: What are you currently teaching this semester?
DW: I’m doing some teaching here and I’m doing some teaching down at the med school. But I’m also writing a book, or rather I’m finishing a book, it’s being due of in April. It’s called Transylvania Dinosaurs and Johns Hopkins’ University Press is publishing it. It was written by me and my co-investigator from Romania, Cora Jianu. It’s about everything you want to know about Transylvania dinosaurs. It is about living on islands in the middle of Europe eight million years ago.
N-L: What types of students do you typically get in your dinosaur class?
DW: All sorts. I think it’s mostly non-science majors. It is a course that revolves around science for non-science majors that the biology department likes to run.
