Dr. Martin A. Buzas was presented with the Joseph A. Cushman Award for outstanding contributions to the field of foraminerology at a special ceremony to recognize his career accomplishments on May 5, 2004 at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The text of Stephen J. Culver’s citation is reproduced below.
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Good morning. It is an honor and a privilege (and it gives me great personal pleasure) to talk to you today in recognition of the career accomplishments of our good friend and colleague Dr. Martin A. Buzas. It is usual on this kind of occasion to start with a summary of a person’s educational background. I’ll also do this, albeit briefly, because this background in Marty’s case had a considerable influence on what was to follow. Marty received his education in the Navy, during the Korean War, at the University of Connecticut (with a BA in Geology in 1958), at Brown University (with a MSc in Geology in 1960), and at Yale University (with a PhD in Geology in 1963). Marty’s advisor at Brown was Dick Cifelli (who later was Marty’s colleague here at the Smithsonian), and at Yale he was influenced by the paleontologist Karl Waage, the statistician Hilary Seal, and the ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson. The benefits of the education that he received from these three giants are evident throughout all of Marty’s long career. Marty took only three years to complete his PhD. His dissertation work on the distribution of foraminifera in Long Island Sound was a classic when it was published and it is still relevant today as it provides the information for later workers to document anthropogenic environmental change in Long Island Sound over the past several decades. Immediately on finishing his PhD, Marty was head-hunted by the Department of Paleobiology’s Rich Boardman who was looking for a paleontologist with extensive quantitative skills. Marty turned down the chance to join an oil company, accepted the Boardman overture, and came to the Smithsonian in 1963. He moved through the ranks until he was promoted to Senior Geologist in 1992. On the way, Marty served the department as Chairman from 1977 to 1982.

I think that that is enough of the basic background. What I am really here for today is to talk about Marty’s contributions to the study of foraminifera, those tiny shelled protists that several of us here today study, sometimes simply as the subject of pure academic enquiry, but often as the means by which we can address a myriad of geological questions in the fields of, for example, biostratigraphy, paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, ecology, paleoecology, and evolutionary studies. Marty has studied foraminifera for over 40 years and for many of those years he has been universally respected as a world expert and innovative leader of foraminiferal research. The significance of his work, however, goes well beyond the boundaries of micropaleontology. Marty’s curriculum vitae succinctly summarizes his research interests as follows, "Understanding the distribution of organisms in small and large amounts of space and time. Benthic foraminifera. Statistics." This brief statement illustrates Marty’s research rationale. He uses benthic foraminifera, a living and fossil group for which it is relatively easy (albeit incredibly time consuming) to obtain large amounts of distributional data. He then applies rigorous statistical approaches (and he has been a pioneer in this particular endeavour) to analyze his data and to recognize generalities that can then be applied to many, if not most other groups of organisms, both living and fossil. Marty, therefore, bridges the gap between ecology and paleoecology, and he does this with a mathematical and statistical gravitas that few other paleontologists can equal.

Over the years Marty has published close on one hundred peer reviewed works of which a dozen are of book scale. His recent work "Surveying Natural Populations," written with Lee-Ann Hayek, has, in a few short years, become a classic in its field and, as it’s title suggests, is of great relevance to biologists as well as paleontologists. But what impresses the informed observer is not so much the volume of his work (which is itself impressive) but the innovation and deep-thinking that underlies much of Marty’s research. Let me give you some examples. He was one of the first paleontologists to analyze data with rigorous statistical approaches; he was one of the first paleontologists to employ the power of computers to enhance his work; he was one of the first paleontologists to quantify patterns of species diversity (including the mathematical definition, with Tom Gibson, of the well-known measure of equitability, E); he was one of the first foraminiferologists to document the fact that benthic foraminifera can be infaunal as well as epifaunal in habit (a seemingly specialized finding but one of great significance to studies of paleoclimate and paleoceanography where stable isotopic data can be affected by the infaunal or epifaunal nature of the species under study); he was the first micropaleontologist to run caging experiments that document the importance of biotic as well as abiotic factors on benthic foraminiferal densities and distributions (these experiments are unique in that they are still ongoing some 25 years later); he was one of the first micropaleontologists to study benthic foraminifera on a provincial scale; he was the first to document the relationship between species duration and evolutionary patterns in foraminifera; he was the first micropaleontologist to demonstrate the significance of the concept of a species pool in the dynamics of foraminiferal communities; along with Lee-Ann Hayek, he invented a completely new approach to biofacies and community analysis, the aptly termed SHE analysis, that solved a supposedly intractable problem in the field of species diversity. To summarize, a good friend of mine, Carl Koch, once explained to me the significant difference between twenty years of experience and one year of experience repeated twenty times. Marty clearly has close on fifty years of experience of research innovation that few of us are likely to approach let alone match.

Marty takes his research seriously but he is most certainly not one-dimensional. His non-research contributions to his science are many and varied. Literally for decades, he has been a Director of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research, serving twice as President; he has also led the Paleontological Society of Washington and the North American Micropaleontological Section of SEPM; he organized and ran the successful 1996 North American Paleontological Convention (and even made a profit that could be used to fund future conventions); he chaired the Smith-sonian’s Paleobiology Department for several years; he has maintained and grown the largest and most significant micropaleontological collection in the world; he provided a creative push for many of the Smithsonian’s paleontological exhibits; and (and I know that this has given him particular pleasure) he has influenced and guided the careers of many young and no-longer quite so young paleontologists and ecologists including, Bruce Hayward (who flew in yesterday from New Zealand for this occasion), Malcolm Erskian, Lisa Osterman, Scott Ishman, Laurel Collins, Rich Aronson, Cecilia McCloy, Karen Carle, Sue Richardson, Ken Severin, Karen Wetmore, Tom Cronin, Carl Koch, Han Jun Woo, Eric Collins, Dave Scott, myself, and most recently and most importantly, his daughter Pamela Buzas Stephens. Clearly, this list is not exhaustive. Marty’s enthusiasm, integrity, wit and wisdom have influenced many more of us, including many of his colleagues here at the Smithsonian and all of the past and present Board members of the Cushman Foundation.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am here, on behalf of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research, to honor Marty for his many and varied accomplishments and contributions to his science. But, in finishing, I must include a personal note. Marty welcomed me from Africa sight unseen into his personal school of charm and diplomacy back in 1978. For the past more than 25 years we have worked together sometimes closely, sometimes separated by the Atlantic Ocean. Every single moment of those many years of collaboration has been a joy and a privilege. Marty, I truly cherish both our working relationship and our personal friendship. You have been the best friend possible and a most influential mentor to this poor, working class, two-time immigrant to the New World!

Marty, it gives me great pleasure to recognize the accomplishments of your long career in micropaleontology by presenting to you the prestigious Joseph A. Cushman Award for excellence in foraminiferal research. Ladies and gentlemen, Marty Buzas!

Journal of Foraminiferal Research, July 2004, v. 34; no. 3, p. 245-246