Randall Irmis’s job is a walk in the park — Jurassic Park, that is.
Irmis is the paleontology curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU). He is also an assistant professor at the U in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and he works with dinosaurs for a living.
“I’m incredibly lucky for my passion to also be my job,” said Irmis, who has worked at the NHMU for nearly five years.
Irmis is currently studying how ecosystems have changed in accordance with the evolution of different species and the environment and to do so he needs dinosaur fossils.
The fossils Irmis unearths are some of the earliest dinosaur specimens in the museum. His fieldwork is conducted in Southern Utah, mostly in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. He has also done research in Dinosaur National Monument, Argentina and Ethiopia. He completed his undergraduate degree in geology at Northern Arizona University and spent three summers in fieldwork at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Irmis worked with park paleontologist Bill Parker throughout the internship.
Because of the Utah’s extensive fossil records, Irmis finds the state to be among the best places for paleontologists, like him, to work. He especially appreciates Grand Staircase as one of the last places in the lower 48 states to be mapped.
“Grand Staircase is an amazing, wild place,” Irmis said. “It’s right in our backyard and a lot of people have never explored it. It’s just true wilderness that you can’t experience in most places. It’s so remote.”
Because of the remote location, Irmis and his colleagues use helicopters for transportation around dig sites and to help extract fossils and it is one of Irmis’s favorite parts about the job. His enthusiasm for discovery does not stop there. Irmis has loved the thought of discovering dinosaurs since he was a little kid.
“I’m just a little kid who didn’t grow up,” he said.
Irmis explained it is a thrill to find fossils no one has ever seen before. These fossils explain environmental phenomenon from 15 million to 20 million years ago that is applicable even today.
Sarah George, the director of the NHMU for the past 21 years, agreed Irmis’ enthusiasm is a unique trait he brings to the museum.
“He has great enthusiasm for his work and he can take complicated findings and explain it so that kids can understand it,” George said.
Irmis uses that enthusiasm to actively engage both students and visitors in science. Irmis jokingly called paleontology a gateway science. He said dinosaurs captivate public attention and enable people to learn more about other sciences.
However, with that curiosity comes misconceptions.
“A lot of people see Jurassic Park and they think we always find complete skeletons just laid out like you see in the opening of the movie and unfortunately, complete skeletons like that are very rare,” Irmis said.
In fieldwork, Irmis and his colleagues spend a large amount of time and manual labor to uncover even partial skeletons. Irmis also writes grant proposals, organizes collections and meets with students about their own research projects.
“One of [Irmis’s] strengths is his ability to communicate the importance and value of research,” George said. “He’s a great communicator.”
If there’s one thing Irmis can communicate, it is his basic approval of Jurassic Park.
“There are a lot of things that aren’t necessarily scientifically accurate,” says Irmis. “But I think people are entertained by it and it encourages people to get interested in paleontology and science.”
When Irmis is equipped with $1.25 for his Coke Zero, he would rather watch his favorite movie “The Big Lebowski.” Because Irmis is a paleontologist he doesn’t need to watch dinosaur movies — he lives them.