Rudyard Sadleir was born on October 8, 1977 and grew-up in suburban Chicago. A North American Speedskating Champion, in high school he also played the piano, chess, and soccer.

These days his interests have switched to cooking, photography, rock climbing, and rugby. As little kids, it was Rud's older brother Jack, who wanted to be a paleontologist, and he led many expeditions to the backyard where they dug in a mound of loose dirt. "It was easy digging-but," Rud adds, "sadly unsuccessful." Jack's now studying physics and Rud's learned the hard essentials of fossil hunting and excavation in Alberta's Dinosaur Provincial Park with scientists from the Royal Tyrrell Museum, and on Dr. Sereno's '97 expedition. "The Sahara was great. Sand still trickles out of my camera case and I relive the adventure and exciting discoveries every time I give a talk to a school group."

Rud volunteers at the Field Museum in Chicago and with Project Exploration; he feels strongly that dinosaurs and paleontology are great ways to introduce children to science. Rud is an undergraduate University of Illinois-Chicago, a Goldwater Scholar and participant of the Smithsonian's Research Training Program at the National Museum of Natural History.

He works preparing fossils in Dr. Sereno's lab and pursues his own research projects investigating predatory dinosaur teeth. After Africa he will apply to graduate programs in paleobiology and vertebrate evolution, but until then he will be focused on the expedition.