AUC Professor Hesham Sallam Receives the Study UK Alumni Award

Hesham Sallam, professor of vertebrate paleontology at The American University in Cairo (AUC) and a graduate of the University of Oxford, received the prestigious Study UK Alumni Awards for Science and Sustainability 2022 at a ceremony held recently at the British Embassy in Cairo. “I am honored to receive this award after all the hard work. I believe that my successful story of leading not only the first vertebrate paleontology program in Egypt but also in the Middle East would be an inspiring story for future generations,” said Sallam.

As described by the British Council, “The prestigious international award celebrates UK higher education and the achievements of alumni of UK universities all over the world.”

With a team of researchers from Sallam Lab in Mansoura University, Sallam has managed throughout the previous years to research and document the prehistoric life of Egypt.

The founder of Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology Center, Sallam, is the senior author of the recently published study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology on fossils attributed to the oldest record of colubroidean snakes from Egypt. The study also documents new squamate specimens, the first Paleogene record of the clade Amphisbaenia, discovered in the Fayoum Depression of Egypt.

Last year, a team led by Sallam also discovered a remarkable 43-million-year-old new amphibious whale, Phiomicetus anubis, from middle Eocene rocks in Egypt’s Fayoum Desert and also discovered ancient fish fossils that survived global warming 56 million years ago, giving a critical glimpse into the planet’s future.

In January 2018, Sallam led the research team that made the discovery of the large sauropod dinosaur Mansourasaurus, which was found in the Dakhla Oasis area of Egypt.

Sallam received his bachelor’s degree in 1997 from the Department of Geology at Mansoura University in Egypt; then, he completed his Ph.D. in 2010 at the University of Oxford (UK). In addition, he was a visiting scholar at Stony Brook University, Ohio University, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and Duke University, USA, from 2014 to 2017. He founded Mansoura University Vertebrate Paleontology (MUVP), the only high-level vertebrate paleontology research unit in the Middle East, combining research, outreach, and conservation endeavor.