Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska

Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (25 April 1925 – 13 March 2015) was a Polish paleobiologist. In the mid-1960s Kielan-Jaworowska led a series of Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert. Kielan-Jaworowska was the first woman to serve on the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences.

Early life and education

Kielan-Jaworowska's studies began in the aftermath of the Second World War: as Warsaw University's department of geology had been destroyed in 1939, she attended lectures in Roman Kozłowski's apartment. She subsequently earned a master's degree in zoology and a paleontology doctorate at Warsaw University, where she later became a professor.

Career and research

Kielan-Jaworowska was employed by the Instytut Paleobiologii of the Polska Akademia Nauk. She held a number of functions in professional organizations in Poland and the United States, and was the first woman to serve on the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences.

Kielan-Jaworowska's work included the study of Devonian and Ordovician trilobites from Central Europe (Poland and Czech Republic), leading several Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert, and the discovery of new species of crocodiles, lizards, turtles, dinosaurs (notably Deinocheirus), birds and multituberculates. She is author of the book Hunting for Dinosaurs, and a coauthor of the book Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs.

Her work was published widely in peer reviewed scientific journals, books and monographs.

Awards and honours

She was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Her book Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs won her the prestigious Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science, in 2005. She was also awarded the Romer-Simpson Medal in 1995.

Personal life

She married Zbigniew Jaworowski, a professor of radiobiology, in 1958.