 In 2017, Dr Norman was one of three British palaeontologists who proposed a radical new hypothesis for early dinosaur evolution and interrelationships in a paper in the journal "Nature".In this work, Dr Matthew Grant Baron, Dr David Bruce Norman and Prof. Paul Michael Barrett (2017) suggested that Ornithischia and Theropoda were closely related as part of a new clade that they named Ornithoscelida.He also possesses a keen interest in rugby, and he regularly referees for Cambridge University and District Rugby Referees Society (CUDRRS), earning himself the nickname 'Refosaurus Rex'.