Tanya Samman
	Cybermentor Since: July 16, 2003
	Occupation: Functional Morphology and Palaeontology
	Education: Department of Earth Sciences at Mount Royal College

Questions & Answers

What exactly is your field of expertise when it comes to dinosaurs?

I am interested in functional morphology, or biomechanics, as a tool to help reconstruct behavior. For example, my research focuses on neck biomechanics in theropod dinosaurs to gain insight into feeding and foraging. I’m also interested in how organisms interact with their environment – what kinds of environments dinosaurs lived in and what effect that would have on their behaviour, as well as what kinds of environments they died in and how that affected how individual animals were preserved.

What can humans learn from studying dinosaurs?

The human species is quite full of itself in believing that we are the only thing and best thing to have ever walked the earth. But if you think that dinosaurs were around for 180 million years and modern man has only been around for about 50,000 years, we have a great deal to learn from a group of animals that lived long ago and how they managed to adapt to their changing environments.

Have you been involved in any palaeontological digs?

I haven’t done much recently as teaching full-time keeps me busy, but during the time I was completing my PhD, I was involved in some field work. I spent quite a bit of time on the digs in Dinosaur Provincial Park and especially in Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, which has some quarries I frequented. I also had an amazing opportunity to go to Mongolia for field work and spent about three weeks there in 2007.

Growing up, were you always interested in science?

I got hooked on dinosaurs when I was about seven years old. I remember learning about fossils in one of our science units when I was in Grade 2 and at the time I was big into collecting rocks – I used to pick up stuff all the time. I was always interested in the natural world and I think that’s why I have a background in both geology and biology, which not all vertebrate palaeontologists do.

Who would you name as your most significant mentors?

At the top of my list would be Dr. Phil Currie, who is well-known and respected as Canada’s foremost “dinosaur guy.” He is now at the University of Alberta, but was the curator of birds and dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller and one of my supervisors while I was doing my PhD at the University of Calgary. I would also name Dr. Chris McGowan, formerly of the Royal Ontario Museum of Toronto for sparking my interest in biomechanics, as well as my Masters supervisor, Dr. Marianne Douglas currently at the University of Alberta, who helped me become the scientist I am today. In addition, I was greatly inspired by the late Dr. Betsy Nicholls, who was curator of marine reptiles at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. She was the ultimate role model for females in the male-dominated world of vertebrate palaeontology.

Are there many women working in your field today?

Women are not that common to this field and palaeontology positions with museums and universities are still mostly occupied by men. However, we are seeing more female grad students so things are certainly looking up. This is not the easiest field to get into and when I began my undergrad studies, people would “kindly” remind me of this discouraging fact, and justifiably so. I came through a lot from grad school to where I am today, and by no means is the struggle over.

If money, time or location was no object, what would be your dream job?

My dream job would be to work in a museum in a job that lets me do active research – a bit of lab work, a bit of field work at digs, some post-secondary teaching and some public outreach work so that I could share my knowledge and make people aware of the exciting things we’re learning about dinosaurs and the natural world.

Does it irk you to see how pop culture portrays dinosaurs and palaeontologists?

When I tell people what I do, they immediately think of one of two things: Ross Geller, the TV character from Friends who was a palaeontologist, or Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park is fun, but from a scientific point of view, it is very “Hollywoodized” science. Michael Crichton told a great story, but the science completely missed the mark. For one thing, they got the genetics wrong. Crichton (in the book, at least) had them inserting frog DNA into the fragmented dinosaur DNA whereas bird or crocodilian DNA would have been much more suitable. Another fallacy was that if you didn’t make any sudden moves, T. rex couldn’t see you. That’s bogus! In fact, T. rex could see and smell extremely well. It was the ultimate meat-eating predator.

Do you have a favourite dinosaur?

Actually, I find the small theropods (a group of primarily carnivorous bipedal saurischian dinosaurs that are linked to today’s living species of birds) very interesting. I like them because of their diversity and because they’re more subtle than hulking giants like T. rex.

What are some of your interests outside of work?

I’m very interested in music, and I play flute and piano. I do contemporary dance and Irish dancing is something I’ve picked up over the past number of years, along with trying things like belly dancing and hoop dancing (hooping). I’m also into martial arts; I have a first-degree black belt in karate, and I greatly enjoy reading, especially science fiction and fantasy.

How would you describe your mentoring experience with Cybermentor?

I very much enjoy being a mentor. I really like the fact that we can encourage young women to study science and stay in the field and not necessarily listen to anyone who might tell them that it’s not for girls. I’ve enjoyed getting to know several girls over the years and there was one particular mentee I had who was very keen and we developed a great connection. We fit together so well that she requested me to be her mentor for an extra year so that was very rewarding.