By Evelyn Boswell MSU News Service
BOZEMAN – Paleontologist Jack Horner has won the highest honor given by
the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The Regents Professor of Paleontology and Curator of Paleontology at the
Museum of the Rockies received the Romer-Simpson Medal on Nov. 2, for
“sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline
of vertebrate paleontology.”
The SVP, which is also honoring filmmaker Steven Spielberg this year, has
more than 2,300 members.
“I certainly don’t feel as if I’m nearing the end of my work, but I am greatly
honored that others think I’ve accomplished enough to deserve such a thing,”
said Horner, 67. “I just hope no one expects me to slow down.”
“It is difficult to imagine someone who, rising from such considerable
obstacles, has achieved so much, given back so much to the profession,
stimulated so much new investigation, and supported so many younger
colleagues and students,” Horner’s long-time collaborator Kevin Padian wrote
in his nomination letter. Padian is a professor at the University of California,
Berkeley.
“Jack’s monumental and intensive fieldwork programme has been the
stimulus for a revolution in understanding of dinosaur biology…” wrote
Angela Milner, scientific associate at The Natural History Museum in London.
The fact that Horner and Spielberg are both being honored this year was a
coincidence, said SVP President Catherine Forster. Spielberg directed the
Jurassic Park movies, for which Horner was scientific consultant.
