National Geographic Explorer, Paleontologist

Diego Pol is an Argentine paleontologist and a National Geographic Explorer who studies how life evolved through deep time. He is head of Paleontology at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales and Professor of Paleontology at the University of Buenos Aires. For more than 25 years, Pol has led field expeditions in Patagonia, one of the world’s richest fossil regions. Diego has discovered over 30 new species of dinosaurs and other reptiles, including Patagotitan, a 122-feet long herbivore that is the largest dinosaur known so far. Diego’s research has traced dinosaur evolution and helped us understand how dinosaur gigantism evolved in response to environmental changes in ancient ecosystems. Through National Geographic–supported projects, Pol currently investigates how past climate change and extinction events can inform our understanding of today’s biodiversity crisis.

He earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University, has served as visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History, is a member of the Argentine National Academy of Sciences, and has published more than 160 scientific papers.