David M. Raup | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1933-04-24)April 24, 1933 |
| Died | July 9, 2015(2015-07-09) (aged 82) |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago Harvard |
| Awards | Charles Schuchert Award(1973) Paleontological Society Medal(1997) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology Paleobiology |
| Institutions | University of Chicago |
David M. Raup (April 24, 1933 – July 9, 2015) was aUniversity of Chicagopaleontologist. Raup studied thefossil record and the diversity of life onEarth. Raup contributed to the knowledge ofextinction events along with his colleagueJack Sepkoski. They suggested that the extinction of dinosaurs 66mya was part of a cycle of mass extinctions that may have occurred every 26 million years.
Born on April 24, 1933, and raised inBoston, Raup's interest in thefossil record did not begin at a young age, having had very little contact with such things until later in life. He focused instead on leisure activities such as skiing and camping. His first mentor was John Clark, a vertebrate paleontologist and sedimentologist at the University of Chicago while starting his education.
Raup began his academic career atColby College inMaine before transferring two years later to the University of Chicago where he earned hisBachelor of Science degree. From there, he went toHarvard for graduate studies where he majored ingeology while focussing onpaleontology andbiology; he earned his MA andPhD degrees there.
Raup taught atCaltech,Johns Hopkins and theUniversity of Rochester.[1] He was a curator and Dean of Science at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago as well as a visiting professor in Germany atTübingen and on the faculty of theCollege of the Virgin Islands. Raup was heavily involved through his career in joint programs with biology and in promoting training of paleontologists in modern marine environments. In 1994, he retired to Washington Island in northernLake Michigan. Prior to his death, he assisted theSanta Fe Institute to develop methods and approaches to dealing with the evolutionary exploration of morphospace. He died on July 9, 2015, of pneumonia.[2] The Hungaria asteroid9165 Raup was named in his honor.[3]
Raup was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996[4] and theAmerican Philosophical Society in 2002.[5]
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