Anniston, AL - Thursday, October 18, from 6-7:30pm, Anniston Museum will present the second in its Special Lecture Series in conjunction with the "A T. rex Named Sue" exhibit. Dr. James Lamb, vertebrate paleoecologist and Curator of Paleontology at McWane Science Center in Birmingham, will lecture on the dinosaurs of Alabama.

A native of Birmingham, it was the young James Lamb's chance discovery of fossils on his school playground which sparked a fascination with the past that remains to this day. While attending Huffman High School, James was invited to join an Explorer Post at the former Red Mountain Museum, as part of a Boy Scouts program to match high-schoolers with their career interest. He developed a strong friendship with the museum paleontologist, Gorden Bell, and continued to volunteer and participate in fieldwork with the museum into college. His interest eventually caused him to change his college major from Materials Engineering to Geology. His first museum job came in 1984 with Red Mountain Museum to prepare the State Fossil, a 60-foot-long fossil whale named Basilosaurus cetoides. While at RMM, James worked on a variety of museum exhibits, did extensive fieldwork and research all over the state of Alabama, and eventually became museum paleontologist/curator in 1987. James left RMM in 1993 after its merger with Discovery 2000, and took an internal appointment as curator of paleontology at the University of Alabama Museum of Natural History in Tuscaloosa. He graduated with a 4.0 average from University of Alabama - New College, with a specialization in paleontology, in 1994.

James left Alabama in 1996 to pursue graduate studies at North Carolina State University, and was the first student accepted there in the newly formed paleoecology program. His advisors were Dr. Dale Russell, a leading authority on dinosaurs, and Dr. Elisabeth Wheeler, a leading authority on fossil wood anatomy. While in North Carolina, James taught geology at North Carolina State University and Wake Technical Community College, worked on fossil exhibits for the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences, and continued to publish original research.

James's PhD topic was a complete environmental reconstruction of the Gulf Coast dinosaur ecosystem about 83 million years ago, about 18 million years before dinosaurs became extinct. He continues his work reconstructing ancient Alabama ecosystems at the McWane Science Center. He is married and has one child.

Those wishing to attend Dr. Lamb's lecture may do so at no cost. Attendees who also wish to see the the A T. rex Named Sue exhibit, may purchase a specially discounted ticket before the lecture, at $5 per person.

For more information on this or any of Anniston Museum's programs and events, please visit our website at www.annistonmuseum.org .