James Kirkland

James Ian Kirkland (born 1954) is an American paleontologist and geologist. He has worked with dinosaur remains from the south west United States of America and has been responsible for discovering new and important genera. He named (or worked with others in naming) Animantarx (Carpenter, Kirkland, Burge, and Bird, 1999), Eohadrosaurus (Kirkland, 1997 [nomen nudum]), now named Eolambia (Kirkland, 1998), Gastonia (Kirkland, 1998), Mymoorapelta (Kirkland and Carpenter, 1994), Nedcolbertia (Kirkland, Britt, Whittle, S. K. Madsen, and Burge, 1998), Utahraptor (Kirkland, Burge, and Gaston, 1993) and Zuniceratops (Wolfe and Kirkland, 1998). At the same site where he found Gastonia and Utahraptor, Kirkland has also excavated fossils of the therizinosaur Falcarius.

Kirkland's career has been distinguished. He is 'adjunct' Professor of Geology at Mesa State College, Grand Junction, Colorado, USA. He is a Research Associate of the Denver Museum of Natural History in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Colorado Boulevard, Denver, Colorado, and is also an official Utah State Paleontologist for the Utah Geological Survey, working in their Ground-Water & Paleontology Program.