Professor Philip Currie Awarded Prestigious Accolade

World famous palaeontologist, Philip Currie has been inducted into the prestigious Alberta Order of Excellence, the highest award the Canadian province of Alberta can give to a citizen.

Professor Currie is normally found either immersed in his work at the Dept. of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta or involved in fieldwork digging up fossils including many dinosaurs.  He is just one of eight people to receive this prestigious accolade this year.  He shares this honour with former premier Ralph Klein and another esteemed member of the University of Alberta academic staff, Professor Emeritus Bob Steadward.  The awards were made in a special ceremony, held yesterday at Government House, Edmonton.

Famous Palaeontologist

A committee of volunteers, led by Alberta’s lieutenant governor Donald Ethell, considers a list of nominated citizens and the award is given to those individuals who can show a record of long service to the people of the province and for the impact their work has on people across the whole of Canada.  Another important criterion for being inducted into the Order is for that person’s work to have stood the test of time.

For Phil Currie, responsible for naming and describing something like 25 new genera of dinosaurs, and with his leading role at the Royal Tyrrell Museum (Drumheller, Alberta), his work passes the time test with flying colours.

Commenting on his award, Phil Currie stated:

“I could not be happier because this award is a milestone for palaeontology in Alberta.  There aren’t many places in the world where a government would recognise dinosaur fossils as resources that we should continue to study and develop.”

For Professor Currie, the tuxedo will have to come off and be put back safely in the cupboard, as shortly he is due to leave for Antarctica to take advantage of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer to help excavate and study a new dinosaur dig site on that frozen continent.

It is such a pleasure to hear of this award, on behalf of everyone at Everything Dinosaur we want to add our congratulations to Professor Currie, to his university colleague Bob Steadward, and to those other new members of this highly respected and select Order.

To view models and replicas of many of the prehistoric animals that Professor Currie has researched: Dinosaur and Prehistoric Animal Models.