Description
Lida Xing established China’s first dinosaur website and unified Chinese scientific names of almost all known dinosaurs when he was merely a high school student. After getting his Master degree from University of Alberta, Canada in 2012, he began his paleontological researches, including complete investigations of over a hundred of China’s Tetrapoda track sites. In the same year, he held the first International dinosaur tracks symposium in China and invited excellent colleagues from 13 countries. In 2016, he moved to the China University of Geosciences (Beijing) and started his teaching career there. As an explorer of National Geographic Society, he discovered the world’s first bird and dinosaur inclusions in amber during his PHD program. He has won quite a lot important rewards, including 2015 Li Siguang Outstanding Student Award, the highest honor for geology students in China, 2015 Top Ten Geological Progresses Award by the Geological Society of China, and 2016 Top Ten Progresses by the Paleontological Society of China, 16th Youth Geological Science and Thechnology Award in 2017 (“Silver Hammer Award”). Since 2005, he has documented by more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, one of which was rewarded as China’s best paper of the year 2016 by Cell Press. Most of his papers focus on China’s Tetrapoda tracks. He and his colleague (eg Martin G. Lockley) have reconstructed the evolution system of the Tetrapoda trackmakers around China, providing significant insights into the Mesozoic ecology of terrestrial animals in China. Since 2013, he has been taking the lead in the studies of vertebrate inclusions in China, built up world’s largest collection of vertebrate inclusions (about one thousand specimens), and described world’s first bird, dinosaurs, and snake inclusions from amber. The cover story of Science (2019, May 24th), “Troubled treasure”, reported his team and achievements. He also gives a lot of lectures to undergraduates, postgraduate, doctoral students as an associate professor. Social activities like introducing dinosaurs to children is also part of his job. All these accomplishments have won great reputation for him in China. As one of the most influential scientists in China, Prof. Lida Xing owns nearly 7 million followers on social media.
