During the year 2025, the Center for Vertebrate Paleontology at Mansoura University and its research team “Salam Lab” led by Dr. Hisham Salam continued to achieve qualitative academic and research achievements that reflected the university’s leadership in the field of paleontological sciences.
Dr. Sherif Khater, President of Mansoura University, affirmed that what the Vertebrate Paleontology Center achieved during the year represents an honorable model for an Egyptian research school capable of competing globally, noting that these successes translate the university’s vision of investing in young scientific competencies and building centers of research excellence with an extended impact at the regional and international levels.
The year 2025 witnessed notable achievements in the field of scientific discoveries. Two new genera of carnivorous mammals were documented and discovered, namely, “Bastetodon” and “Sekhmetops,” in addition to documenting the discovery of the valley crocodile, “Wadi Sox,” as a new genus and type of crocodile.
The Center also carried out more than a dozen field exploratory missions inside the Arab Republic of Egypt, in addition to the participation of team members in research missions in the states of North Dakota and Oklahoma in the United States of America.
During the year, Salam Lab members won a large number of awards and honors, most notably the selection of Dr. Hisham Salam as Personality of the Year in the field of scientific research at Mansoura University, within the Mansoura Top Stars Award 2025, and awarding him the Shield of Excellence as one of the prominent success stories during the sixteenth Science Day. Mansoura University also honored Dr. Sanaa Al-Sayed and Dr. Shorouk Al-Ashqar in appreciation of their scientific excellence.
Dr. Shorouk Al-Ashqar won the Best Scientific Research Award in Vertebrate Paleontology for the year 2025 from the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, while Dr. Sanaa Al-Sayed received the DEEP Award from the American Paleontology Society, in addition to a number of team members receiving prestigious international research grants from specialized American and British universities and institutions.
Within the framework of supporting international cooperation and transfer of expertise, during the year 2025, the Center hosted international expert Dr. Joe Granke from Ohio University, to train students in fossil restoration and 3D digital modeling, and it also hosted Professor Julius Georgalis from the Polish Academy of Scientific Research for joint research work and to deliver a specialized scientific lecture.
Scientific visits were carried out to natural history museums in the United States of America and Canada as part of the Egyptian Natural History Documentation Initiative, in addition to organizing scientific summer training, and specialized lecture series on evolution and the history of life on Earth, digitizing fossils, and applications of artificial intelligence in paleontology.
The year 2025 witnessed notable academic achievements, represented by Dr. Shorouk Al-Ashqar obtaining a doctorate degree in vertebrate paleontology from Mansoura University, as the first researcher from the center’s students to obtain this degree, in addition to Dr. Sarah Saber obtaining a doctorate degree in vertebrate paleontology from Assiut University, as the first researcher in this specialty in the universities of Upper Egypt.
The center team also succeeded in publishing four research papers in prestigious international scientific journals that dealt with crocodile and mammal fossils and the evolution of whale brains, in addition to three other research papers under publication, participating in ten research summaries in specialized international scientific conferences, and scientifically supervising three doctoral students and one master’s student, with the academic preparation of two others for postgraduate studies.
Salam Lab continued its efforts in the field of digital transformation. He created a three-dimensional digital archive of fossil specimens, and began maintaining and documenting the holdings of the Open Museum in the Qarun Reserve, and the Museum of Paleontology and Climate Change in Wadi El-Hitan, in addition to presenting a wide series of general and specialized scientific lectures locally and internationally.
Salam Lab’s discoveries and achievements received wide international media coverage from prestigious institutions, including CNN, BBC, National Geographic, Nature, Science, and others, in addition to appearing on local and international television programs and interviews, and publishing the story of Salam Lab as the first Egyptian research program on the Nature Middle East platform.
The Mansoura University Center for Vertebrate Paleontology also received more than one thousand and forty-seven visitors during the year 2025.
