Rate My Professor Thomas Holtz

Thomas R. Holtz Jr. serves as Principal Lecturer in Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at the University of Maryland. He earned a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University in 1987 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1992. Holtz directs the Science & Global Change Program within the College Park Scholars living-learning community and holds adjunct faculty status in the Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics Program. He is also a Research Associate in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and a member of the Scientific Council of the Maryland Science Center. In 2019, he received the Provost’s Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty in Teaching.

Holtz’s research centers on the phylogeny, functional morphology, ecomorphology, and locomotion of theropod dinosaurs, with particular emphasis on Tyrannosauridae. He authored the book Dinosaurs and contributed chapters on Saurischia, Basal Tetanurae, and Tyrannosauroidea to the second edition of The Dinosauria. Additional publications include numerous peer-reviewed papers on theropod systematics, predatory guild structure, and related topics, as well as editorial contributions to The Complete Dinosaur. Holtz has advised on documentaries such as Walking with Dinosaurs and When Dinosaurs Roamed America.