Skip to Content
Advertisement
Paleontology

Dr. Kirk Johnson

Sant Director, National Museum of Natural History

Featured Video

Kirk Johnson hadn’t yet earned his Ph.D., or become director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. After all, he was just 6. But what he did have then, as today, was a consuming fascination with fossils.

In this, the first of a series of animations focused on how people got interested in science, Johnson recounts a formative childhood adventure that still thrills him today. The animation is part of a larger collection of origin stories for both scientists and non-scientists, that is jointly produced by Nautilus and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Advertisement

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Paleontology

Explore Paleontology

Nightmarish Heron-like Dinosaur Unearthed in Patagonia

Pretty tough to be a fish 70 million years ago

May 29, 2026

The Cephalopods Are Coming

Fossil records reveal Earth’s mass extinctions are followed by a rise of ocean cephalopods. They’re rising again.

May 29, 2026

This Toothless, Beaked Crocodile Ancestor Walked on Two Legs

It came on the scene during a time of evolutionary experimentation

May 26, 2026