Washington – Federico Fanti, a Unibo researcher at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, is one of the Emerging Explorers of National Geographic, an award that the prestigious scientific institution reserves to “scientists, disseminators and innovators with unique and extraordinary talent”. Fanti, 36, is the only Italian among the fourteen Emerging Explorers selected this year. Geologist and paleontologist, he also conducts research at the “Giovanni Capellini” Geological Museum of Alma Mater. His studies focus on how climate and ecological changes have influenced evolution through adaptation or extinction events. Since 2006, he has conducted excavation campaigns in Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Australia, as well as in Europe and Africa. In December 2014, during an expedition in the Tataouine Governorate, Tunisia, he discovered the skeleton of a giant crocodile, a new species for science, which was named Machimosaurus rex. Emerging Explorers 2017 will be held in Washington in June at the National Geographic Explorers Festival. (9colonne)
