Professor Emeritus, Earth Sciences
Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064
 e-mail: laporte@ucsc.edu
mailing address: 430 Nimitz Ave., Redwood City, CA  94061

Education: Columbia University, B.A. (Geology), 1956; Ph.D. (Geology), 1960.

Academic Positions: Instructor to Professor (Geological Sciences), Brown University, 1959-71. Professor (Earth Sciences), University of California at Santa Cruz, 1971-94; Emeritus, 1994.

Academic Activities: Univ. of California: Dept. Chairman, 1972-75, Dean, Natural Sciences Division, 1975-76; Provost, Crown College, 1993-1998; Associate Vice Chancellor, Undergraduate Education, 1994-1998. UC Santa Cruz Alumni Distinguished Teacher Award, 1980; Undergraduate and graduate courses in The Fossil Record, Advanced Paleontology, Life and Work of Charles Darwin, and George Gaylord Simpson, and the History of Geology. Paleontological research expeditions to Galápagos, Kenya, Bahamas, Belize, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Southwestern U. S.

Professional Memberships: American Association for the Advancement of Science; California Academy of Sciences; Geological Society of America (GSA); History of Earth Sciences Society; Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM)

Professional Activities: President's Award for (best paper), American Assoc. Petroleum Geologists, 1967; Founding Editor, Palaios (SEPM), 1985-1989; Councilor, SEPM, 1985-1989; President, SEPM, 1995-96. Chairman, History of Geology Division, GSA, 1988. U.S. History of Geology Ctee., National Research Council, Secretary, 1991-93; Chair, 1994-96. Member of the International Commission of the History of the Geological Sciences (1994-date). History of Earth Sciences Society, President, 1994. Co-convenor, Penrose Research Conference on History of Earth Sciences (GSA), 1994.

Books:

Ancient Environments, 1968, 1979, 1989, Prentice Hall. 3/e with Dr. Cathryn Newton. (Translated into Spanish, Portugese, German, Polish, and Japanese.)

Earth and Human Affairs, 1972, Canfield Press /Harper & Row, (principal author).

Reefs in Time and Space, 1974, SEPM, Spec. Public. 18 (editor).

Encounter with the Earth, 1974, Canfield Press/Harper & Row.

The Fossil Record and Evolution, 1978, 1982, W. H. Freeman, (editor). (Translated into Arabic.)

Simple Curiosity: Family Letters of George G. Simpson, 1921-1970, 1987, Univ. of California Press (editor).

Establishment of a Geologic Framework for Paleoanthropology, 1990, Geol. Soc. America, Spec. Paper 242 (editor).

George Gaylord Simpson, Paleontologist and Evolutionist, 2000, Columbia Univ. Press.