Tech, Innovation & Society - The Creative Process: Technology, AI, Software, Future, Economy, Science, Engineering & Robotics Interviews Jack Horner - Renowned Dinosaur Paleontologist - Technical Advisor, Jurassic Park/World Films
Jack Horner is a severely dyslexic, dinosaur paleontologist. He attended the University of Montana for 14 semesters without receiving a degree. He has since received two honorary doctorates of science and a plethora of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship. Jack was Curator and Regent’s Professor of Paleontology at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana for 34 years. He has more than 300 publications. He was the technical advisor for all of the Jurassic Park/ Jurassic World movies. At Chapman University where he now teaches, Jack encourages his honors students and dyslexic mentorees to challenge their preconceived ideas.
"I'm an educator, and I'm interested in educating people about what dinosaurs were really like. One of the ways to do that is through working on exhibits for museums, working with some of these other companies that make things like exhibits, working with them to try to update their ideas of what dinosaurs were like. Modern exhibits oftentimes have a lot of VR in them and a lot of computer graphics and things like that.
So we have to work together with companies that are interested or are doing that sort of thing. We started working early on with Microsoft to make these virtual dinosaurs that you could put on a VR mask and see these dinosaurs. We also made a little VR game that kids could play and dig up dinosaurs. We're just trying to figure out ways to go beyond what we can do at universities and see if we can figure out ways of just sharing all this new information."