Nizar Ibrahim, PhD, National Geographic Explorer and TED fellow, has collected fossils on several continents. He tracked down giant dinosaur remains in Texas, collected remains of enigmatic sea monsters in the UK, and excavated remains of some of the world's largest predatory dinosaurs. He led several major expeditions to the Sahara Desert and his work there has revealed a spectacular menagerie of prehistoric creatures, including crocodile-like hunters, car-sized fish, ancient flying reptiles, and the giant, largely aquatic, dinosaur – Spinosaurus. Nizar is currently working on the world’s largest Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, and the world’s largest flying creature, with a 33 ft wingspan. He is also supervising work on a giant elephant-like creature, the Deinotherium.

Ibrahim's research has been featured in National Geographic, NATURE, SCIENCE, The New York Times, and many other high-impact publications. This includes the landmark National Geographic cover story "Reimagining Dinosaurs" and a 2020 cover story in NATURE, which was ranked the second-most popular NATURE publication in the world in April 2020, featured in over 1800 media outlets and reaching approximately 2 billion people globally.

The first paleontologist in TED history, Nizar’s TED videos gathered over 2.5 million views to date. In 2015 he was named one of Chicago's 40 under 40 by Crain's Chicago Business, joining previous recipients including Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey. He recently served as Scientific Director on the Hong Kong’s "Big 8" paleontology exhibition, which attracted close to 1 million visitors in less than six months. This year, his work on the world’s largest predatory dinosaur is also featured in Japan’s Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, a leading dinosaur research center. His work will be featured in the National Geographic Museum of Exploration in Washington, DC, opening in 2026.

Nizar was a scientific advisor for the BBC's Planet Dinosaur, and other documentaries, including Walking with Dinosaurs (BBC, PBS, ZDF, France Télevisions). A documentary film for Japan's national broadcaster NHK is also in the works and the recent documentary film Why Dinosaurs? premiered in Hollywood last year. Nizar has taught human anatomy, comparative anatomy, paleontology, and cadaver labs at university level.