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Jack Tseng
Jack Tseng

Jack Tseng

Doctoral Student
Integrative and Evolutionary Biology

USC doctoral student Jack Tseng has a passion for carnivores – and not just any carnivore, but one of the most ferocious creatures ever to walk the Earth.

Tseng’s passion was ignited during his undergraduate days at UC Berkeley, when he was employed as an intern at a local zoo. Working with the carnivores, he was struck by the fact that there are only four living species of hyena, whereas more than 70 fossil species have been found. What happened to this once widely diverse family?

If Tseng’s hunch is correct, the hyenas – which are distantly related to cats – were out-competed by members of the dog family. The dog, he explains, originated in North America and emigrated to Asia, which is where most species of extinct hyenas have been found.

In building his case, Tseng has embarked on a wide-ranging intellectual journey. A biology major, he has collaborated with colleagues in the kinesiology, dentistry, and aerospace and mechanical engineering programs at USC, and also at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, to develop a digital model of the bone-cracking hyena jaw. This will help him better understand hyenas’ evolution, the special adaptations they have acquired over time and how they might have come into direct competition with dogs. His research overlaps with anthropology as well: Hyenas collect the bones of the creatures they eat, and fossil den sites often include hominid remains and tools.

Tseng also travels extensively to fossil sites in the United States and abroad. Now, as one of USC’s record-breaking cadre of 16 Fulbright scholars for 2008-09, he is spending a full year in China continuing his investigations.

When he’s not immersed in study, Tseng is an ardent ambassador for his field. Working with the Natural History Museum, he loves to take children on fossil-hunting trips to the Mojave Desert and Red Rock Canyon State Park. Kids “are totally into” paleontology, he says. “My dream is that someday every high school will have a paleontology program.”