Utah State University, with the help of faculty at the USU Uintah Basin Campus, are working to create and offer a paleontology certificate which could help remedy an area of unmet job demand. USU publication The Utah Statesman reported on Monday that fossils continue to be found all the time, especially in northeastern Utah, which creates demand for jobs in the field of geoscience. Benjamin Burger is a USU Uintah Basin Professor and a Paleontologist who teaches classes in geoscience. “There is this conception out there that there aren’t very many jobs in paleontology, but with a lot of construction, a lot of land management issues, and with a lot of natural resources, they keep discovering new dinosaur bones whenever they’re building a road or things like that,” explains Burger. “So there’s a lot of need for people that have that experience.” The potential certificate of paleontology would help fill that gap as there is currently not a university in the United States that has an undergraduate paleontology degree and this will offer an option to receive professional training earlier on than currently happening. It is hoped that the certificate will be available for students to register for in the Fall 2024 semester.
