Luke Mahler
Luke was born on November 13, 1980, and grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and Nashville, Tennesee. For fun, he alternated his time between tormenting his younger siblings and exploring the creeks and forests near his home. He would wander for hours, catching anything that moved (snakes, spiders, turtles, you name it…), climbing trees, and jumping off rope swings into the creek. Even as he got older and grew into skateboards and loud music, he never grew out of his interest in the outdoors.

His interest in dinosaurs was an extension of his interest in nature in general. After his parents had bought him a Childcraft dinosaur encyclopedia, he was hooked. He began working with fossils as soon as he started classes at the U of C. “Paul Sereno gave a talk in the winter of my first year. When the event had finished, I cornered him and asked him how to get involved in his type of work.” In a month’s time he was learning how to clean and reconstruct fossils in the prep lab, and that summer was offered a position as a preparator.

He got the offer to join the 2003 expedition earlier this year when Paul was helping him research a paper he was writing. “He pulled out some of his field maps and began to explain the alignment of rock layers in Niger. He paused for a second and said, ‘well, you’ll have a chance to see this for yourself if you’re up for it this fall…’ I certainly wasn’t going to argue with that!”

Luke’s looking forward to a lot of things on this trip, not the least an opportunity to travel in a region of the world that sees not only little tourism, but sometimes little human activity at all – an opportunity that is hard to come by in such a rapidly growing and globalizing world. He’s also psyched about the fossils and biology, since most of his favorite specimens in the lab came from Niger, and is hoping to find some new stuff.

And of course, he’s going to keep his eye out for more modern creatures too. His love of herpetology unabated since he caught snakes in the forests by his home, he’s excited to see what kinds of reptiles (and possibly amphibians) inhabit the Sahara.