Students in the Summer Chinese Language Program visited the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing on Thursday, July 25, 2013. The IVPP, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a key research institute of China and a powerhouse in the investigation of paleontology and vertebrate evolution.
The excursion was organized by Zhe-xi Luo, Professor in UChicago's Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy. Luo participated in the tour but also recruited two leading scientists, Xing Xu and Corwin Sullivan, to guide the summer session students through the museum exhibits at IVPP and to give a behind the scenes tour of the fossil lab where some of Xu's newly discovered fossils were undergoing preparation and analysis.
Xu, IVPP Professor, has been the subject of articles in the journal Nature, as well as the newspaper USA Today. The Peking University graduate is known especially for his work with feathered dinosaurs and for wide-ranging paleontological expeditions in China. Sullivan owns a PhD from Harvard University and is an expert on functional study of vertebrate fossils at the IVPP, where he is now an Associate Professor.
