Jose Fernando Bonaparte

Bonaparte is the son of an Italian sailor, with no close connection to the Napoleon Bonaparte family. He was born in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, and grew up in Mercedes, Buenos Aires. Despite a lack of formal training in paleontology, he started collecting fossils with many friends at an early age, and created a museum in their home town. He later became the curator of the National University of Tucumán, where he was named Doctor Honoris causa in 1976, and then in the late 1970s became a senior scientist at the Argentina Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires. Bonaparte is a two-time Guggenheim Fellow and since the 1970s has received periodic funding from the National Geographic Society. He is reportedly hard working, stubborn, and has a strong personality, even violent. He received another honorary degree from the National University of Comahue in 2011.