On December 4th Khalafallah Salih successfully defended his PhD on the Diversity and Systematics of the Late Cretaceous Crocodyliformes of Sudan at the Technische Universität Berlin. Congratulations Khalaf!

Faysal was featured in New York University Abu Dhabi speaking on his longterm field project in the Baynunah Formation.

The year is almost over, and there have been quite a few changes. First and foremost, Gabi successfully defended her dissertation. Congratulations, Dr. Sobral!

Also, Sebastian won the 2nd place in the student competition at the annual meeting of the Herpetological Association of Africa. Congrats also here!

Finally, Christy will be leaving the lab to start her new position in Melbourne, Australia, in January. After Johannes, Christy was the longest member of the lab, and we wish her all the best for her career down under!

Many things happened in the last 6 months, and we have to apologize for being slow with the updates.

In a nutshell:

– Johannes was on a visiting professorship at Ohio University for 2 months in spring, hosted by Don Miles. It was a great time!

– Afterwards, Johannes and Christy worked with Don, Barry Sinervo and Fausto Mendez in Baja California and collected some live Bipes. Very cool to see these critters alive.

– And Martin Kirchner defended his M.Sc. thesis. Congratulations!

Johannes spent much of January in sunny Sudan for paleo field work. Here’s a pic of the crew.

Johannes’ talk that he gave at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid in November 2013 is now online. You can watch it here.

Faysal Bibi joined the lab for the coming years. Welcome to Berlin!

Former labmate Linda Tsuji published her work on the pareiasaur Deltavjatia, which she carried out in Berlin as part of her Ph.D., and got the cover. Congratulations!

A follow-up to Gabi’s award notification: here’s a pic with her official certificate, handed over at the 2013 SVP meeting in Los Angeles. Congratulations again!

During his fieldwork in Namibia, Sebastian has been featured in a documentary on climate change:

http://www.wetenschap24.nl/programmas/Klimaatjagers/wetenschappers/wetenschappers-afrika.html

http://www.wetenschap24.nl/programmas/Klimaatjagers/afleveringen/Afrika.html