Scott Hocknull (born 1977) is a vertebrate palaeontologist and Senior Curator in Geology at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. He was the 2002 recipient of the Young Australian of the Year Award. He is the youngest Australian to date to hold a museum curatorship and has described and named 10 new species and four new genera.

Early life

Scott Hocknull was born in Adelaide, South Australia. His family moved to Brisbane when he was 12. He went to Kooralbyn International School the only school to have produced to Young Australian of the Year recipients, the other being Cathy Freeman. He enrolled in a B.Sc. at the University of Queensland in 1996, majoring in zoology and geology. He took his degree with Honours in 2000.

Career

Hocknull worked at the Queensland Museum during his university studies. After graduation he became a curator in geosciences at the Queensland Museum. He became senior curator in 2002. He took his doctorate from the University of New South Wales, in 2009. In cooperation with the original finder Robyn Mackenzie, Hocknull published the description of Australotitan cooperensis.

Awards