Paul Sereno earned a doctorate in geology at Columbia University. In 1987, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he teaches paleontology, evolution, and anatomy.

Discoverer of dinosaurs on five continents and leader of dozens of expeditions, Sereno's fieldwork began in 1988 in the foothills of the Andes in Argentina, where his team discovered the first dinosaurs to roam the Earth, including the most primitive of all, Eoraptor. This work culminated in the most complete picture yet of the dawn of the dinosaur era, some 225 million years ago.

In the early 1990s his expeditions shifted to the Sahara to unearth Africa's lost world of dinosaurs. Here, Sereno's teams have excavated more than 70 tons of dinosaur fossils from rocks dating from the Cretaceous period. These include plant-eaters like Nigersaurus and Jobaria, meat-eaters like Afrovenator, Deltadromeus, Rugops, the huge-clawed fish-eater Suchomimus, the huge Tyrannosaurus-size Carcharodontosaurus, and a series of crocs including the 40-foot-long "SuperCroc" (Sarcosuchus), the world's largest crocodile.

An expedition in 2001 took Sereno and his team to western and central India. In Mumbai (Bombay), they later unveiled the Asian continent's first dinosaur skull, belonging to a new predator named Rajasaurus. Also in 2001 Sereno began an ongoing series of expeditions to China, first exploring remote areas of the Gobi in Inner Mongolia and discovering a herd of more than 20 dinosaurs that died in their tracks. Sereno's current expeditions in China target Tibet, the last unexplored fragment of the ancient southern landmass Gondwana.

The author of books and articles in National Geographic and Natural History magazines and the subject of many documentaries, Sereno's recognitions include the Chicago Tribune's Teacher of the Year Award (1993), Chicago magazine's Chicagoan of the Year (1996), Newsweek magazine's The Century Club (1997), People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People (1997), Esquire's 100 Best People in the World (1997), Boston Museum of Science's Walker Prize for extraordinary contributions in paleontology (1997), and Columbia University's University Medal for Excellence (1999).

Sereno and his wife, Gabrielle Lyon, also founded Project Exploration, a nonprofit outreach organization dedicated to bringing discoveries in natural science to the public and providing innovative educational opportunities for city kids.