Lance Grande

Roger Lansing Grande (born February 16, 1951), more commonly known as Lance Grande, is an evolutionary biologist and curatorial scientist. His research and work is focused on Paleontology, Ichthyology, Systematics and Evolution. He is best known for his work on the paleontology of the Green River Formation and for his detailed monographs on the comparative anatomy and evolution of ray-finned fishes.

Grande has won the PROSE award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence from the Association of American Publishers twice, for his books ''Gems and Gemstones'' and ''The Lost World of Fossil Lake''. In 2012, he won the Robert H. Gibbs, Jr. Memorial Award from the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists "for an Outstanding Body of Published Work in Systematic Biology." In 2013, he was appointed as the Field Museum of Natural History's first Distinguished Service Curator, after serving eight and a half years as head of the museum's Collections and Research division and museum Senior Vice President. Grande has received numerous research grants from National Science Foundation, Negaunee Foundation and Tawani Foundation. He has named over 68 species and other new taxa and published over 150 scientific articles, books and monographs. The extinct bird ''Calciavis grandei'' and two extinct garfish (''Atractosteus grandei'' and ''Grandemarinus'') are named in honour of him. Provided by Wikipedia