Kimi Chapelle

⛏Vertebrate Palaeontologist
📝 Assistant Professor @stonybrooku
🇿🇦Proudly South African
🦕Basal sauropodomorphs are my jam
✉ [email protected]

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

Scientists are superheroes!
Thank you so much @SciSuperheroes for featuring my work and me! 🤩 I am lucky and proud to have a job in science that I love. 🦕

[SuperScientists @SciSuperheroes]

An amazing week for dinos🦕💕🦖& to share Dr @Kimi_Chap as Dinova! A vertebrate palaeontologist @ESI_FossilLab & @AMNH studying the embryos of Massospondylus who evolved to be the giants 🦕 emojis and TV is made of 200million yrs later.
Funds @GenusPalaeo🎨@Clydebeech @WryCritic

[NHMdinolab @NHMdinolab]

From the archives, our low budget version of Walking with Dinosaurs back in fieldwork near Clarens, South Africa nearly a decade ago. You might recognise some of the people watching in bemusement as I pace out these tracks (thanks to @Kimi_Chap for sharing) … #FossilFriday

[NHMdinolab @NHMdinolab]

Partial hand of an Early Jurassic sauropodomorph from the Forest Sandstone of Zimbabwe, at the NHM Zimbabwe, Bulawayo 🦕🇿🇼

[RGGS at AMNH @RGGSatAMNH]

Congratulations to AMNH Postdoc alum Jonah Choiniere on his Carroll Award for Early to Mid-Career Research from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology!

[PAST AFRICA @PASTEvolve]

🎬 Big congrats to Fancy Horse Studios & @KarooOriginsTFC on winning the Lazendorf PaleoArt Prize for Digital Modelling and Animation — the first South African studio to win a global animation prize for bringing a prehistoric Karoo waterhole to life! 🐾🌍

This creative project blends palaeoscience and storytelling, allowing audiences to see how ancient ecosystems once thrived in the Karoo.

Read more 👇
🔗 https://t.co/tSyowtQ8ba

#OriginSciences 🔬 #FossilFriday 🦴 #AllFromOne #paleoart #Africa

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

Spent a wonderful few days in London, where I finally got to meet Fern (*swoon*) and the new baby, Enigmacursor 🤩🦕🌿
It was wonderful wandering around @NHM_London , and catching up with friends/colleagues. A massive thank you to @NHMdinolab for everything 🤗👏🇬🇧

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

A highly successful and enjoyable #2025SVP @SVP_vertpaleo in Birmingham! Had a wonderful time chatting about synchrotron scanning, catching up with friends/colleagues from back home and around the world, and finding out what cool fossil science people are up to! 🤩🦕👏🇿🇦🔬🩻🇬🇧

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

Assistant Professor in the areas of evolutionary neuroanatomy, comparative neuroscience, brain evolution, and/or sensory adaptations in vertebrates: https://t.co/C8Eh0CRo2z

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

📢📢What's better than one tenure track position? TWO TENURE TRACK POSITIONS! See comments for descriptions. 🧠🦴💀🐁🦎🐍🐢🥳

BOTH have an application deadline of Nov 15, 2025 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

Feel free to reach out with any questions!

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

Assistant Professor in the area of vertebrate evolutionary morphology. The ideal candidate would have a research program centered on specimen-based mammalian or synapsid vertebrate paleontology but other non-archosaur taxonomic foci will be considered: https://t.co/zfxDfrZopy

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

📢📢WE ARE HIRING! 🥳🎉
Please share far and wide.

Tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the areas of evolutionary neuroanatomy, comparative neuroscience, brain evolution, and/or sensory adaptations in vertebrates.

https://t.co/C8Eh0CRo2z

[Stephan Spiekman @StephanSpiekman]

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @Nature! https://t.co/6P8mkNp1gZ

Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

A lovely new paper led by Jack! 🥳🇿🇲
Congratulations Jack and team, and thank you for the opportunity to learn more about this group of animals! It was a blast. 🦴🔬

[Jack_Lovegrove @JackL0vegr0ve]

New paper out today with @NHMdinolab @Kimi_Chap @_gondwannabe_ and Paul Upchurch. In it we describe a partial silesaur femur from Zambia!
https://t.co/7s81olAGd4

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

@JGN_Paleo @Paleoartologist Yey James et al. 🎉🎉🎉🎉 Congrats 🎉🎉

[Dr. James G. Napoli @JGN_Paleo]

Was the key to bird flight 'all in the wrist'?

New research, published today in Nature, shows that important adaptations for flight in the wrists of modern birds were present in bird-like theropod dinosaurs .

🧵
Illustration by @Paleoartologist

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

That's a wrap on 2.5 weeks of fossil digging in one of our favourite places, Qhemegha, EC, SA. 🇿🇦⛏️🦕💚
A great crew, fantastic hosts, cooperative quarries, fabulous new fossils, and heeps of memories.
Thank you to everyone involved.
Until next time, I already can't wait! 🤩

[The Anatomical Record @AnatRecord]

Don't miss our next exciting webinar: "Pseudosuchia: Masters of Survival and Diversification", presented by Drs. Holly Woodward, Mariana Valéria de Araújo Sena, and Jorge Cubo on Monday May 5 at 12pm EDT. Free registration here:
https://t.co/DOEvGET3jS

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

🤩🇿🇦💚⛏️

[Wits University @WitsUniversity]

[WATCH] World-Renowned Wits Sterkfontein Caves Reopen

Step into the depths of time at the newly reopened, world-famous Wits Sterkfontein Caves, home to some of the oldest and most significant hominin fossils ever discovered. This UNESCO World Heritage Site stands at the forefront of paleoanthropological research, where iconic finds like Mrs Ples and Little Foot continue to shape our understanding of human evolution.

Link: https://t.co/SgUOwGC5pe

#WitsForGood #WitsSterkfonteinCaves

[Kimi Chapelle @Kimi_Chap]

@NERVES_meetings Link here: https://t.co/dSsjk84Xaw

[Northeast Regional Vertebrate Evolution Symposium @NERVES_meetings]

📢REMINDER!
The deadline to submit your talk title+co-author list is next Friday, March 14th!
You can register for the conference and submit your talk title+co-author list here. Please note that these are two separate processes:
https://t.co/6c5IokbY0n

[Armita R. Manafzadeh @armanafzadeh]

Finally took a trip on the ferry to hang out with the anatomy crew down at Stony Brook — thanks so much to @Kimi_Chap and Drew Moore for the invitation!!