astronomy

Nizar Ibrahim

Nizar Ibrahim is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nizar Ibrahim rather than just read about it. In short: Nizar Ibrahim (born 8 September 1982) is a German-Moroccan vertebrate palaeontologist and comparative anatomist. He is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

Key takeaways

Nizar Ibrahim belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nizar Ibrahim to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nizar Ibrahim from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nizar Ibrahim (born 8 September 1982) is a German-Moroccan vertebrate palaeontologist and comparative anatomist. He is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. Ibrahim has led several expeditions to Africa's Sahara and is notable for his research on fossil vertebrates from the Kem Kem Group, including pterosaurs, crocodyliforms, and dinosaurs. In recent years, research led by Ibrahim radically changed ideas about the morphology and the lifestyle of one of the largest predatory dinosaurs, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Ibrahim also has interests in bioinformatics and contributed to the NSF-funded Phenoscape project. He regularly engages with the public and is a speaker with the National Geographic Speakers Bureau.

Biography

Youth and education Nizar Ibrahim was born on 8 September 1982 in West Berlin, West Germany. He has German and Moroccan ancestry, with his grandfather being the third Prime Minister of Morocco, Abdallah Ibrahim. Since his childhood, he has been very enthusiastic about animals and their diversity, anatomy, and evolution. He also loved fiction and nonfiction stories of adventures around the world. At 5 years old, he decided that he was going to become a palaeontologist while reading a book on dinosaurs. He obtained a Bachelor of science in geology and biology from the University of Bristol in 2006. In 2011, he obtained his PhD from the University College Dublin's School of Medicine and Medical Science. He carried out his postdoctoral studies at the University of Chicago for four years.

Career He was an assistant professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, where he taught human anatomy, comparative anatomy, and evolution between 2018 and 2020. Ibrahim is a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. In Morocco, he works with a number of Moroccan researchers and students based at Hassan II University. Ibrahim was one of 21 people selected as a TED fellow in 2015, which makes him the "first palaeontologist in the history of the program".

Awards and recognition In 2014, he was selected as a member of National Geographic's Emerging Explorer Program. In 2015, he was named a TED Fellow. In 2015, he was listed in Crain's "40 Under 40". In 2019, his Spinosaurus discovery was named one of the Top 20 Scientific Discoveries of the Decade by National Geographic.

Selected publications Ibrahim, Nizar; et al. (26 May 2010). "A New Pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea: Azhdarchidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco". PLOS ONE. 5 (5) e10875. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...510875I. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010875. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 2877115. PMID 20520782. Ibrahim, Nizar; Kutschera, Ulrich (2013). "The ornithologist Alfred Russel Wallace and the controversy surrounding the dinosaurian origin of birds". Theory in Biosciences. 132 (4): 267–275. doi:10.1007/s12064-013-0192-5. ISSN 1611-7530. PMID 23975643. S2CID 13185739. Ibrahim, Nizar; Varricchio, David J.; Sereno, Paul C.; et al. (6 March 2014). "Dinosaur Footprints and Other Ichnofauna from the Cretaceous Kem Kem Beds of Morocco". PLOS ONE. 9 (3) e90751. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...990751I. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090751. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3946209. PMID 24603467. Ibrahim, Nizar; Sereno, Paul C.; et al. (26 September 2014). "Semiaquatic adaptations in a giant predatory dinosaur" (PDF). Science. 345 (6204): 1613–1616. Bibcode:2014Sci...345.1613I. doi:10.1126/science.1258750. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 25213375. S2CID 34421257. Ibrahim, Nizar; Sasso, C. Dal; et al. (2016). "Evidence of a derived titanosaurian (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) in the "Kem Kem beds" of Morocco, with comments on sauropod paleoecology in the Cretaceous of Africa". Cretaceous Period: Biotic Diversity and Biogeography: 149–159. Ibrahim, Nizar; Sereno, Paul C.; et al. (21 April 2020). "Geology and paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous Kem Kem Group of eastern Morocco". ZooKeys (928): 1–216. Bibcode:2020ZooK..928....1I. doi:10.3897/zookeys.928.47517. ISSN 1313-2989. PMC 7188693. PMID 32362741.

References

External links Nizar Ibrahim's biography Archived 5 October 2022 at the Wayback Machine on University of Detroit Mercy Nizar Ibrahim at IMDb Interview with Dinosaurs expert Nizar Ibrahim on ZDF

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nizar Ibrahim

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nizar Ibrahim claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nizar Ibrahim before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nizar Ibrahim ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nizar Ibrahim

In research: Nizar Ibrahim appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nizar Ibrahim in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nizar Ibrahim is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1982 births, Academics of the University of Portsmouth, Alumni of University College Dublin, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nizar Ibrahim outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nizar Ibrahim in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nizar Ibrahim means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nizar Ibrahim out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nizar Ibrahim in simple terms?

Nizar Ibrahim (born 8 September 1982) is a German-Moroccan vertebrate palaeontologist and comparative anatomist. He is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.

Why does Nizar Ibrahim matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nizar Ibrahim?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nizar Ibrahim.