Dr. MacFadden was a tenured faculty member at the University of Florida for 47 years (1977–2024), attaining the rank of Distinguished Professor (Emeritus since 2024). During this period, he also held the position of faculty curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History (FLMNH), a college-level unit at UF. He held concurrent administrative appointments as FLMNH director of Exhibits and Public Programs (1997–2004) and founding director of the Thompson Earth Systems Institute (2018 –2023). During his career Dr. MacFadden taught courses on paleontology, evolution, and Broader Impacts and supervised more than 30 graduate students. He has published more than 200 articles in peer-reviewed professional journals, mostly focused on fossil mammals of the Americas. He also authored two books, i.e., Fossil Horses (1992) and Broader Impacts of Science on Society (2019), both published by Cambridge University Press. According to Google Scholar, his publications have been cited more than 18,000 times (h-index = 69). He has been PrincipaI Investigator on more than 50 NSF-funded projects (40 as lead PI) totaling nearly $40 million. For his most recent award (2147625), he led a team to teach public middle school teachers and their students in Florida to engage with AI (artificial intelligence) using fossil shark teeth and machine learning. During his time as UF faculty, MacFadden received a Fulbright Fellowship to Bolivia (1994) and sabbatical appointments at Cornell University (1989–1990), University of Utah (1993), and Santa Cruz County (CA) school district (2015–2016). He was President of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (1986–1988) and Paleontological Society (2018–2020). He is a Fellow of the AAAS, Geological Society of America, and Paleontological Society. He received the Gregory Service Award from the SVP in 2009. MacFadden received his B.S. (with honors) in agriculture from Cornell University (1971) and PhD in geological sciences from Columbia University (1976). Prior to his faculty appointment at UF, he was Gibbs Instructor of Geology & Geophysics at Yale University (1976 –1977).