Rate My Professor Nicolas Campione

Dr. Nicolás Campione is a Senior Lecturer in Palaeobiology within the Department of Earth Sciences, School of Environmental and Rural Science, at the University of New England. He earned a B.Sc. Honours in Earth Sciences with a concentration in Vertebrate Palaeontology from Carleton University, an M.Sc. in Zoology from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. His research combines traditional palaeontological practices, such as field-based and taxonomic studies, with quantitative techniques including morphometrics and phylogenetics to explore anatomical variation in the fossil record and correlate it with ecologically relevant data from extant taxa. Focusing on vertebrate palaeontology, particularly Mesozoic dinosaurs, his projects investigate dinosaur body size estimation and evolution, dietary reconstructions through tooth morphology, mid-Cretaceous vertebrate diversity in Queensland and New South Wales, Australia, Early Triassic vertebrate diversity in Tasmania, Late Cretaceous vertebrate diversity in Alberta, Canada, and the evolution and origins of dinosaur integument. He leads the Campione Palaeobiology Lab and participates in ongoing field programs like the Boreal Alberta Dinosaur Project.

Campione teaches primary units GEOL210 Dinosaurs! and EVOL301 Macroevolution and Systematics, and contributes to GEOL110 Our Blue Planet, GEOL202 Introductory Palaeontology, EVOL211 Evolution and Biogeography, and GEOL315 Vertebrate Palaeontology. Key publications include Campione NE and Evans DC (2020), The Accuracy and Precision of Body Mass Estimation in Dinosaurs, Biological Reviews; Benson RBJ et al. (2018), Cope's rule and the adaptive landscape of dinosaur body size evolution, Palaeontology; Campione NE et al. (2014), A mathematically derived equation for estimating body mass in terrestrial bipedal tetrapods, Methods in Ecology and Evolution; Benson RBJ et al. (2014), Rates of dinosaur body mass evolution indicate 170 million years of sustained ecological innovation on the avian stem lineage, PLOS Biology; Hart LJ et al. (2022), On the estimation of body mass in temnospondyls, Palaeontology; Devereau O et al. (2024), Paleoneurology of the iguanodontian Fostoria dhimbangunmal, Journal of Paleontology; and White MA et al. (2022), Abdominal contents reveal Cretaceous crocodyliforms ate dinosaurs, Gondwana Research. His work advances knowledge on dinosaur macroevolution, body size trends, and extinction dynamics in vertebrates including sharks.