Sue Hendrickson, the amazing woman who found the world's most famous T-Rex. It is named 'Sue' after her and has travelled around the world giving kids everywhere a chance to see a T-Rex skeleton up close. Sue Hendrickson is a marine archaeologist and field palaeontologist. As well as excavating dinosaur fossils, she dives through ancient shipwrecks looking for treasure..

What was it like to find Sue?
Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!! It's been 11 years and I still do not believe it! It's like winning the lottery 50 million times! I have found thousands of pieces of common dinosaurs, never in my wildest dreams, could I ever have expected to find a whole T. rex. You just don't ever find them, but I did. And I will never believe it! It's awesome! I'm so lucky.

How long did it take to dig Sue up?
Excavating Sue was very fast — 17 days. The reason it was so fast is she was buried under 30 feet of rock. It took us five days to remove the rock. But when we got to the bone layer, she was all there in one place, so we didn't have to go looking for bones. We just had to cut big chunks of rock with her bones into chunks we could put onto trailers.

Were the bones really fragile?
Her bones were in excellent condition — most weren't even crushed. Normally, you have to put a lot of glue into bones so they don't fall apart. But with Sue, the vast majority of bones were in great shape. With foot bones that were about one and a half feet long, I could just pick them up with no glue. I then put a plaster cast on them to make sure they were safely transported to the lab. But in the field, I was able to just pick it up — after 65 million years, she didn't need glue!

Do you just put the bones together then or do you have to clean and prepare them?
The cleaning of the bones took a team of more than 12 people four years in the prep lab.

How do you know where each bone goes?
Sometimes it's easy because it's one I've already found or recognized, and sometimes it's hard. But the bones that I think are the most fun are the ones we don't know what they are. Once a year we have a big paleontology conference, and all the dinosaur people come together, and often bring their "mystery bones" to share with everyone else. It's like Show and Tell. Using the collective experience of all the best dinosaur studiers, we try to unravel the mystery. That's what I love about paleontology, or the study of fossils, is that there is so much discovered nearly every year. And we're solving mysteries and changing ideas all the time. So, it's like being a sleuth — it's really exciting.

What's the most dangerous expedition you ever went on?
In my underwater archaeology work, I've been on a number of dangerous deep-diving excavations. Mostly just because it's deep, it's much more dangerous. We have had accidents of divers who got the bends. We had one who had no air for nine minutes, but we brought him back to life. Working on big ships in storms, you have heavy equipment — many dangerous conditions.

Did you always want to do this sort of work?
I think I was born this way! As a small child I was very, very shy. I grew up in Chicago, and I always looked down while walking and was always looking for stuff — but because I lived in a city, it was mostly money! I started collecting seashells when I was 5, and I was a voracious reader. So I think I was very lucky in that my love of reading helped me my whole life — I've loved different subjects, and I was always able to educate myself on those subjects by reading and by seeking out the world's leading experts on amber, paleontology, underwater archeology. So my curiosity, which is still very intense, overcame my shyness and drove me to search out the things that interest me.

Do you love archaeology or paleontology best?
I love them both. What I love about both is finding things. I love the thrill when I find something new. I'm like a 4-year-old on an egg hunt — I just want to find stuff; I don't care if it's underwater or on land. I'm addicted to looking for and finding things. That's my true passion in life.