Name: Thomas Carr

Age: That's personal, but I weigh 140 pounds!

Personal/family: Single; no family in the United States.

Hobbies/interests: Poetry, tyrannosaur growth and evolution.

Occupation: I have a dual appointment that is divided between teaching at Carthage College, where I am an assistant professor of biology, and serving as the curator of the Dinosaur Discovery Museum. I am also the director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology, which governs the vertebrate paleontology lab (in the DDM) and our field operations.

How I ended up working in this field: I've been interested in dinosaurs since I was 2 years old, but the moment where I decided to become a vertebrate paleontologist arrived when I volunteered on a dinosaur dig in Alberta, Canada. I was 18 years old. After that point it was simply a matter of achieving the necessary undergraduate and graduate degrees. Specifically, I've been most interested in a position that includes research, museums and teaching. The position at Carthage College interested me because it had that combination.

Why is what you're doing important? Vertebrate paleontology, the study of extinct backboned animals, is important because it reveals humanity's place in the history of life on Earth.

One choice of a dinner companion, dead or alive: Sylvia Plath, because I admire her intellect and skill.

Editor's note: Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer, who died in 1963.

I knew I was an adult when: I became my own person at 18 years of age, when I arrived at the camp of my first dinosaur dig.

First job/weirdest job: First job: a butcher shop in a grocery store.

My friends describe me as: "Serious, thoughtful, dark, tenacious, meticulous, curious, handsome, polite, intelligent, straightforward."

Person I admire most: Charles Darwin, because he killed supernatural agency with his book, "The Origin of Species," which no other person achieved despite the intellectual advancements of the Enlightenment.

What I miss most from my childhood: The sensation that time moves at an intolerably slow pace.

In the next five years I would like to accomplish: Establish Carthage College and the Dinosaur Discovery Museum as the best places in the Midwest for undergraduates to receive academic training in vertebrate paleontology.

If you know somebody people should know, contact Phyllis Sides at (262) 631-1714 or via e-mail at

psides@journaltimes.com