Our Upcoming Speaker
Note: Meetings are Hybrid with Zoom and In-Person at the Lodge at the Birmingham Zoo
MONDAY July 13, 2026 at 7:00 PM Central Time USA
Title: "Dinosaur C.S.I."
Speaker: Joseph "PaleoJoe" Kchodl:
PaleoJoe Takes you on a trip back in time to learn about the victims and perpetrators, life and death of the prehistoric. Learn the techniques used in the investigation of how these creatures lived and died. See the evidence and discover the stories that are told through Dinosaur CSI.
About the Speaker:
Joseph J. "Paleo Joe" Kchodl is an award-winning paleontologist, author, and educator. Best known for bringing interactive paleontology programs to schools, museums, and libraries, he specializes in trilobites and dinosaurs. He has discovered significant fossils across the Midwest, Utah, and Wyoming.
Winner 2001 Katherine Palmer Award - Paleontological Research Institute
Winner 2021 Charles Sternberg Medal - Association of Applied Paleontological Science
Joseph has always been a “collector.” Throughout his life, he enjoyed collecting unique natural history artifacts and fossils. His greatest and most prevalent fascination is fossils, dinosaurs and trilobites in particular. He began to develop his fossil collection and subsequent search for knowledge as a young boy growing up in the fossil-rich Niagara Falls area. He has been privileged to be a keynote speaker and 25-time Guest Lecturer at the Greater Detroit Rock and Mineral Exposition. He has also lectured at Michigan State University, St. Clair Community College, Wayne State University, University of Michigan and Missouri Science and Technical University. Joseph is the curator and developer of three natural history fossil exhibits. He has displayed fossil expositions at Museums across the Midwest, one of which is called Trilobite Treasures: Arthropods of the Ancients Seas that is currently touring the United States. It is the largest and most comprehensive exhibit describing those ancient creatures once so plentiful that the Cambrian Period was called the age of Trilobites. The exhibit contains over 200 actual specimens and artifacts.
