M. Paul Smith

M. Paul Smith is a British palaeontologist who serves as head of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and a professor at Kellogg College. He previously held the position of Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, where he led the university' s School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences and directed its Lapworth Museum of Geology. He earned his BSc from the University of Leicester and his PhD from the University of Nottingham, and is recognized for discovering that conodont teeth contained bone cells unique to vertebrates, pushing back the known origin of vertebrates by around 40 million years, to approximately 515 million years ago.