Featured Expert

Kirk Johnson is chief curator and vice president for research and collections at the Denver Museum of Nature and Sciences. Kirk studied geology and fine art at Amherst College, obtained a Master’s Degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed his Ph.D. at Yale University.

Between 1990 and 1995, he led a team that planned, and built the Museum’s award-winning exhibition Prehistoric Journey. He and Richard Stucky wrote the accompanying book, Prehistoric Journey, A History of Life on Earth. Kirk is the author of several popular books on fossils and the American West. His most recent book (with Alaskan artist Ray Troll), Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway: An Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000-Mile Paleo Road Trip, won the "Colorado Humanities Award" for best nonfiction book of 2007.

In November, 2010, Kirk led the excavation of ice age plants and animals near Snowmass Village, and will be returning to the site in May, 2011, with a team of more than 35 scientists and 80 diggers to complete the excavation. So far, the site has yielded parts of 8 to 10 mastodons, 4, mammoths, 4 giant bison, 2 deer, a Jefferson’s ground sloth and a trove of amazingly preserved fossil plants.

Check out these available items for purchase by Discovery Retreats expert Kirk Johnson: