University News

University Highlights

MCNICHOLS • RIVERFRONT • CORKTOWN

Students hunt dinosaurs in Sahara Professor Nizar Ibrahim, with hat, says the Sahara Desert once was completely under water, and full of enormous dinosaurs.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of the Sahara Desert hunting fossils and can’t tell whether something is a rock or a bone, there’s a trick.

“If you lick them and they stick to your tongue, it’s a bone,” University of Detroit Mercy Biology Lab Manager Justine Becker said.

Becker learned this when she accompanied world-renowned paleontologist and University of Detroit Mercy Assistant Professor Nizar Ibrahim and four Detroit Mercy students on an expedition to the Sahara this past summer.

“I found some that would stick to your tongue,” Becker said. “That moment when you actually validate that it’s a bone, it’s just really special. It was probably my favorite moment.” Ibrahim, who is a National Geographic Explorer, is no stranger to the Sahara. He’s led several expeditions that have gained world-wide fame for his work uncovering a menagerie of prehistoric creatures, including the giant flying reptile Alanqa and the mysterious Spinosaurus, a sail-backed predatory dinosaur larger in body length than a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Ibrahim’s goal is to reconstruct the entire ecosystem of the Sahara of approximately 100 million years ago when it featured a huge river system that served as home to a wide variety of spectacular animals from Africa’s Age of Dinosaurs. And he is using Detroit Mercy students to help make that happen.

Photo by Andreas Jacob

DID YOU KNOW?

Dependent children of alumni are eligible for an undergraduate alumni scholarship of $1,000 per year, for a maximum of $4,000 over four years. Learn more at community.udmercy.edu/benefits Legacy students are eligible for scholarships!

Oral histories of Mercy, Jesuit religious online

The stories of the women and men in Detroit who followed their calling and helped build what is now University of Detroit Mercy are being told in a far-reaching and important new online archive by the Detroit Mercy Libraries and Instructional Design Studio.

The Jesuit and Mercy History and Spirituality in Detroit project is the culmination of many years of work.

“This has been a long time coming,” said Dean of University Libraries and Instructional Technology Jennifer L. Dean. “This project started under my predecessor, Dean Emerita Margaret Auer, who thought it was important to collect the oral histories of the Sisters of Mercy and their contributions to Mercy College of Detroit and Detroit Mercy.”

Over the years, most of the Sisters of Mercy were interviewed for this project and those interviews were captured on video. They discussed their calling, their work and their lives. Later, the project was expanded to include local members of the Society of Jesus, or the Jesuits.

“They trusted us to talk to us, and to me, that made it important we get it right,” Jill Turner, associate librarian who worked on the project, said. “This archive is also a history of Detroit when you look at the circles they traveled in, and what they did with their persistence and their calling. I’m not Catholic, but I found their stories inspiring.”

The Jesuit and Mercy History and Spirituality in Detroit project is available on the Archives and Special Collections pages that can be found at libraries.udmercy.edu.

For longer versions of these stories, please visit sites.udmercy.edu/alumni.