Cushman Foundation Award to Jere H. Lipps

Jere H. Lipps received the Joseph A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research on October 24, 2006 at a standing-room-only Cushman Reception of the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA. Lipps’ productive career has promoted foraminiferal research to the forefront of both geological and biological sciences, and has strongly influenced the next generation of micropaleontologists and geobiologists. Jere began his foraminiferal studies in his native Los Angeles at the University of California Los Angeles in the 1960’s. Under the direction of Helen Tappan, along with mentoring from Al Loeblich, he completed his PhD in 1966, after which he quickly rose through the academic ranks at the University of California Davis. Jere opted to join the faculty of the University of California Berkeley in 1988, where he remains to the present as a Professor of Integrative Biology and a Faculty Curator in the Museum of Paleontology. Lipps’ research interests include the evolutionary biology of marine organisms, especially protists; the ecological and biological study of extant and extinct species; and the astrobiology of Jupiter’s icy moons and Mars, based on analogy with Earth’s icy ecosystems. To date, Jere has authored over 400 technical papers, abstracts, reviews, government reports, books, and magazine articles; nearly 200 of these are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. The breadth of these articles ranges from works on planktonic foraminiferal species descriptions; to coral reef fish predation; to molecular identification of foraminiferal symbionts; to Late Neoproterozoic metazoans; to habitats and taphonomy of life on Europa. Jere continues to teach a variety of courses, including Micropaleontology, Paleobiology, Astrobiology, Communication in the Biological and Earth Sciences, and Biology and Geomorphology of Tropical Islands, which is a very popular course taught at the Richard Gump Tropical Research Station of the University of California, Berkeley, located on Moorea, French Polynesia. Jere has advised over 45 successful Masters and Ph.D. students. His students and post-doctoral associates have radiated to positions all over the United States and the World (e.g., Pakistan, Germany, Guam). Jere instilled in his students the perspective that a multidisciplinary perspective is a pre-requisite if one seeks to successfully elucidate answers to long-standing questions in the earth sciences. Through his career, Jere has taken advantage of many opportunities to visit other universities and institutions. For example, he has spent extended periods at the Oxford University, Aarhus University, The British Museum of Natural History, Universität Tübingen and most recently, at the Museum National d’Histoire Natruelle, Paris (2005–2006). Over the years, Jere has been supported by his family, friends and students. His wife of more than 30 years, Susie, has traveled with him often, after their children were grown. Susie’s excellent sense of humor has made her a popular spouse at a variety of work-associated functions. Jere has served the scientific community in a variety of avenues, including being the organizer of two extremely successful meetings (Forams ’94 and NAPC 2001). To this day, people continue to compare recent meetings to Jere’s past efforts. He has been the President of the Paleontological Society, Chair of the Association of North American Paleontological Societies, and two-time President of the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research. He was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences in 1985 and a Fellow of the Paleontological Society in 2006. He is presently the Secretary of Section E (Geology and Geography) of the AAAS and Chairman of the Board of the Micropaleontology Project Project, which publishes Micropaleontology and Stratigraphy. Jere’s editorial efforts have been plentiful, including service to Paleobiology, Micropaleontology, Journal of Foraminiferal Research, Evolutionary Monographs, Geology and Marine Micropaleontology. In terms of public outreach, Jere has presented many public talks on paleontology, geology, marine biology, astrobiology, and scientific literacy; written papers for teachers and the general public on scientific literacy; and penned passionate editorials on varied aspects of paleontology. Jere’s field work has taken him to all seven continents, and many islands in between those continents. Much of his early field work on living foraminifera was at Enewetok Atoll, where he SCUBA dived in shark-infested waters to collect samples with his graduate students. After these successful forays (not one student was lost), Lipps became involved with polar research. In addition to working on the Ross Ice Shelf Project, Jere, Ted DeLaca and Robert Hessler ‘‘discovered’’ Explorers Cove (New Harbor, McMurdo Sound), which has been a landmark site for Antarctic foraminiferal studies since the 1970s. Jere was honored by the Antarctic Board of Geographic Place Names in 1979 when an island was named Lipps Island in his honor. The island is located within two kilometers of the United States Antarctic Program’s Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, where Lipps has also conducted field work, including SCUBA collections and some close calls with Leopard seals. While there are numerous stories of Jere’s escapades, perhaps none surpasses an event that occurred during a field trip in Western Australia in 2002 when Jere was ‘‘assaulted’’ by a kangaroo. Those that witnessed the encounter chuckle heartily at its retelling. One wonders why the kangaroo selected Jere as its target, and must assume it was because the kangaroo somehow sensed that Jere had the personality to appreciate the unique situation. Although Jere was conferred the Cushman Award this year, we anticipate many more significant scientific contributions, service to the scientific community, and entertaining yarns from him in the years to come.

Joan M. Bernhard

Journal of Foraminiferal Research, January 2007, v. 37, no. 1, p. 2-3