During the past three decades, Dr. Stanley has been the only paleontologist to receive the Penrose Medal, the highest award of the Geological Society of America.
BALTIMORE, MD, November 12, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Prof. Steven M. Stanley, PhD, research professor with Florida State University and research associate with The Smithsonian Institution, was selected by Marquis Who's Who for a prominent feature in the Greater New York Edition of The Wall Street Journal, published on September 10, 2024.
Professor Steven M. Stanley, PhD, a renowned paleontologist and writer, is the author of "T. Rex, Darwin, and Adventures Out West," a riveting new novel that depicts the escapades of a group of college students and a professor, with whom they share a powerful bond. Replete with drama, elation, tragedy and humor, the book includes fascinating nuggets of science and a mystery story.
Dr. Stanley has also written several additional books. Reviewing his "Children of the Ice Age" in the Los Angeles Times, Douglas Preston wrote, "Not since 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' have I been so captivated by a nonfiction book." Dr. Stanley's "The New Evolutionary Timetable" was nominated for an American Book Award. His "Earth System History" is the leading textbook in the field of historical geology, and he was the co-author of "Principles of Paleontology," which modernized the teaching of paleontology.
Dr. Stanley has distinguished himself for over six decades in the field of paleontology. He is famous for his research on the theory of punctuated equilibria, which recognizes that once a species originates, its population stabilizes and displays little change thereafter. His most important geological contribution is his demonstration that changes in the magnesium/calcium ratio of seawater have dictated what kinds of organisms have been major reef builders and producers of lime sediment in the course of Earth's history. He has also produced a mathematical calculation showing that marine life did not nearly die out at the end of the Permian Period, with 95% of species dying out (as conventionally believed), but only suffered the loss of about 81% of all species.
Dr. Stanley is now a research professor in the department of biology at Florida State University. At the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa for 14 years, he served as a research professor in the department of Earth sciences. Prior to that, while on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University for 36 years, he founded and then chaired the university's part-time evening master's degree program in environmental science and policy for 11 years. He began his career at the University of Rochester in 1967. Dr. Stanley maintains a laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution.
During the past three decades, Dr. Stanley has been the only paleontologist to receive the Penrose Medal, the highest award of the Geological Society of America. Among his many other awards are the Mary Clark Thompson Medal of the National Academy of Sciences, the Twenhofel Medal of the Society for Sedimentary Geology, and the Paleontological Society Medal of the Paleontological Society, for which he notably served as president. He was also president of the American Geological Institute and served on two boards of the National Research Council. In 1973, with the Allan C. Davis Medal, The Maryland Academy of Sciences recognized Dr. Stanley as Maryland's outstanding young scientist of the year.
Having come of age on 24 acres of riverfront property, which ignited in him an intense passion for the study of rocks and minerals, Dr. Stanley attended Princeton University, from which he graduated in 1963 with a Bachelor of Arts in geology, summa cum laude. He then earned a Doctor of Philosophy from Yale University in 1968.
Looking toward the future, Dr. Stanley hopes to become an emeritus professor at Johns Hopkins University and continue contributing to humankind's understanding of the history of life.
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