Notes

Dong Zhiming was born on 1/1/1937 in Weihai, Shandong. In 1950 when Dong was 13, he was introduced to dinosaurs by a museum exhibit with the fossil of a Hadrosauridae. 12 years later in 1962 Dong graduated from university with a degree in biology. After Dong graduated, he started working at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing where he was advised by Yang Zhongjian the "father of Chinese vertebrate paleontology." Yang helped initiate the formal study of fossils in China in the 1920s and lead the field of Chinese paleontology even after cooperation in foreign schools had ended in 1949. more than 10 years later he does not participate in work but was willing to take Dong as a student particularly made it clear that he was interested in the research even harder subjects like dinosaurs as opposed invertebrates for which fossils were more plentiful and easy to be transported. over the 3 years Dong has authored 600 academic papers in both English & mandarin