SVP-26_Banner

Welcome To Cleveland!

The Host Committee for the 86th Annual Meeting is excited to welcome all participants to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology’s 2026 meeting in “The Forest City”, Cleveland, Ohio. The meeting will take place at the downtown Huntington Convention Center (HCC). This is the second time Cleveland has hosted the Annual Meeting. If you attended in 2008, you will be impressed by the many changes that have taken place, especially at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History!

“Forest City” may not be the moniker that comes to mind when you think of Cleveland, even though it dates back nearly 200 years. The city is still working to restore its tree canopy to what it was in the mid-19th century, but forests abound in its “Emerald Necklace”, a series of 18 suburban parks that span some 21,000 acres, and in the adjacent Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which encompasses nearly 33,000 acres. You won’t find any forests downtown, but if you need a break between talks, posters, and networking, head a few blocks north to Voinovich Park for a great view of Lake Erie, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and downtown Cleveland - one of the best selfie spots in the city.

Those of us who live in Cleveland love the fact that it combines the amenities of a big city (it was the seventh largest in the US in 1950) with the space and affordability of a much smaller one (you can take the red line train downtown from the airport for only $2.50!). This is largely due to deindustrialization and suburbanization, which hit Cleveland hard in the 1960s and 70s. The city has undergone a resurgence in the past 20 years and is becoming a model for a modern Rust Belt city. We hope you can take advantage of the great restaurants and local food scene in Cleveland as well as the many arts and cultural organizations and events.

Paleontologists from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) comprise this year’s Host Committee. Both institutions are in University Circle, about 5 miles (8 km) due east of downtown. University Circle is home to many other cultural attractions as well, including the impressive Cleveland Museum of Art (free to visit!), the Western Reserve Historical Society, and Severance Hall, home of the world-renowned Cleveland Orchestra. The nearby Lake View Cemetery & Arboretum is worth a visit at any time of year; its forested hills include the James A. Garfield Memorial (one of 40 US presidential burial sites), Wade Memorial Chapel (with an interior designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany), and the Eliot Ness Memorial (yes - THAT Eliot Ness!). The adjacent Little Italy neighborhood is filled with restaurants and cafes, making the area a great place to spend the day.

Among paleontologists, the CMNH is likely best known as the home of Dunkleosteus terrelli, the big, bad arthrodire that is the “poster child” for the Devonian Period in museums throughout the world. Other notable fossils include Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, the Late Jurassic sauropod represented in the museum’s logo, and the Late Cretaceous theropod Nanotyrannus lancensis. The CMNH is well-known among paleoanthropologists for the specimen of Australopithecus afarensis known as “Lucy,” which was discovered, collected, assembled, and described by CMNH researchers.

The CMNH completed a stunning centennial transformation late last year, which includes entirely reimagined galleries. You will not want to miss the Welcome Reception! Several celebrated fossils are commemorated in this year’s annual meeting logo and stickers, which were designed by Sofia Cina, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art and CWRU’s MS in Applied Anatomy program. The specimens are held by one of the Guardians of Traffic: eight colossal Art Deco figures that flank the downtown Hope Memorial Bridge. In real life, each Guardian holds a different vehicle illustrating the evolution of ground transportation from the 1800s to the 1930s. Be sure to look for them if you travel Carnegie Street to visit the West Side.

Case Western Reserve University is a private university that formed in 1967 with the merger of Western Reserve University (founded in 1826) and Case Institute of Technology (founded in 1880) - hence the long name. It is home to about 6,500 undergraduates and 5,800 graduate and professional students distributed among eight schools. CWRU is the research nexus of northeast Ohio, and PhD faculty at the CMNH, Holden Forests and Gardens, and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo supervise undergraduate and graduate students via faculty appointments at CWRU. In addition, the School of Medicine has affiliations with four local hospitals that support research and training: University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center. Vertebrate paleontology at CWRU is centered in the Anatomy Department in the School of Medicine and has collaborations with the departments of Biology and Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as Biomedical Engineering.

A few places downtown worth checking out if you have time or if you will be traveling with family include:

Slightly more distant attractions include:

We hope that after attending the 86th Annual Meeting, you will agree that Cleveland Rocks!

Darin Croft, SVP 86th Annual Meeting Host Chair
Caitlin Colleary, SVP 86th Annual Meeting Host Committee Vice-chair
On behalf of the SVP 86th Annual Meeting Host Committee

Scroll to Top