Dr Thomas Halliday is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist, specialising in mammal evolution and phylogenetics. His research combines theoretical and real data to investigate long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. He holds an honorary fellowship at the University of Birmingham, and has previously been a Scientific Associate of the Natural History Museum

His first book, Otherlands: A World in the Making, was published by Allen Lane in the UK, and by Penguin Canada and Random House in the USA in early 2022. Within its first weeks of publication, it became a Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller, described as ‘epically cinematic… a book of almost unimaginable riches’. Later in the year, Otherlands was named as Foyles Non-Fiction Book of the Year, shortlisted for the James Cropper Wainwright Prize, Waterstones’ Book of The Year Award, and as longlisted for the Ballie Gifford Prize. His new book All The World, about the last ancient super-continent, will be published by Allen Lane.

Thomas was the winner of the Linnean Society’s John C. Marsden Medal in 2016 and the Hugh Miller Writing Competition in 2018.