Our ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition staff are professional scientists and science educators from the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma. We value a wide range of professional skills and career paths, to provide a broad set of instruction and perspective to our students. All our staff are deeply passionate about science outreach and education in addition to their professional specializations.
Nick Czaplewski
ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition Educator
Nick Czaplewski (Chap-lev-ski) is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Sam Noble Museum and has been a scientific advisor for the museum’s ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition program for 12 years. He is a paleontologist and biologist of Polish and Neandertal ancestry, born and naturalized in the Great Plains of North America. He enjoys engaging others in all aspects of the natural world and honors its land and peoples through direct interaction, reciprocity/caretaking, mentoring, volunteerism and making art. He extends these ideas to his work in deep-time earth history to his perception of Indigenous ecological knowledge, paleogeography and the incredible creative evolutionary potential of life. He understands science as a way of thinking that a lot of people share; the way in which most of us have similar means of encountering the world: seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing and as a result mostly agreeing that something is probably true. As scientists we also sometimes ‘play with the rules’ in a way that lets us uncover previously unknown patterns or connections that grow our understanding of nature, and of human nature (Blackawton et al., 2010). Nick earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at the University of Nebraska-Kearney and his Ph.D. at Northern Arizona University.
Kyle Davies
ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition Field Advisor
Kyle Davies is a paleontologist and fossil preparator for the vertebrate paleontology department at the Sam Noble Museum. His work includes helping collect fossils, cleaning them out of the rocks they are found in, molding and casting fossils, preparing them for display and repairing broken ones. He has been involved in mounting a number of skeletons of fossils animals including many on display at the Sam Noble. Occasionally he contributes to research, public displays and museum events. Kyle earned two Bachelor’s of Arts, in Geology and Paleontology, from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master’s of Arts with emphasis in paleontology from the University of Texas at Austin.
Jennifer Larsen
ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition Field Advisor
Jennifer is a paleontologist at the Sam Noble Museum. She is the collection manager for the vertebrate paleontology collection. She is responsible for cataloging and housing specimens and assisting researchers in the collection. She assists in field work and preparation of specimens. She has done field work in Oklahoma, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Arizona and New Mexico. She is also actively involved with the education department and museum outreach. She enjoys sharing her love of vertebrate paleontology with students and the public. She has been involved with the ExplorOlogy® program since its beginning, working with students in the collection, preparation lab and at the quarry. Jennifer earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Biochemistry from OU and her Master’s of Science in Zoology with an emphasis in Paleontology from OU.
Emory Holland
ExplorOlogy® Paleo Expedition Coordinator and Educator
Emory is a museum educator at the Sam Noble Museum. Her primary responsibility is designing and implementing programs for all ages at the museum, including Spike’s After-School Club, Sam Noble Discovery Kits, ExplorOlogy Paleo Expedition, and various programs for families, teens, and adults. She is passionate about the intersection of art and science and loves sharing that passion with the community. She has also participated in multiple paleontology and archaeology field expeditions in Illinois, Montana, and Wyoming. Emory earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Archaeology from Boston University and a Master’s of Arts in Heritage and Museum Sciences from Texas Tech University.