Suzanne Hand

Suzanne J. Hand (born 1955) is Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales, a teacher of geology and biology, who has a special interest in vertebrate palaeontology and modern mammals. Her research has been published in over 250 articles and books, and is especially focused on the subjects of evolutionary biology, functional morphology, phylogenetics, and biogeography. Hand is a co-leader of the research team investigating the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, regarded as one of the four most important sites of fossil-bearing formations in the world.^[1][2]

Hand has described and named more than 140 new fossil taxa, including a new order, families, tribes, genera and species of monotremes, marsupials, bats, birds, reptiles and frogs. Amongst the recognition of Hand's contributions is the specific epithet of a fossil species of bird, Eoanseranas handae, discovered in the Riversleigh fossil sites.^[3]

Hand was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 2024 King's Birthday Honours for "distinguished service to palaeontology and zoology, particularly as a fossil bat and marsupial researcher, and to tertiary education".^[4] She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales in 2001 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales in 2015.^[5]

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