Event Details
Deciphering the Details of Dinosaur Worlds
Raymond Rogers is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Geology at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he has taught since 1997. Rogers holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from Northern Arizona University (1985), a master’s degree in geology from the University of Montana (1989), and a PhD in geology from the University of Chicago (1995). In addition to his appointment at Macalester College, Rogers is also an advising member of the graduate faculty in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Minnesota, a research associate in the Earth Sciences Department at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, and a research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
A sedimentary geologist and paleontologist by training, Rogers’ research interests revolve around the quality of the fossil record, specifically in relation to how the remains of backboned animals are buried and preserved within sedimentary rocks. He has focused primarily on the fossil record of dinosaurs and his work has taken him far afield, with ongoing projects in Montana, Argentina, and Madagascar. His notable research outcomes include dating of the earliest known dinosaurs, documenting cannibalism among carnivorous dinosaurs, and recognizing patterns of fossil preservation in relation to large scale tectonic controls. Rogers has established several new geologic units (formations and members) in Madagascar and Montana and contributed to papers that named five fossil species new to science. Rogers has authored or co-authored over sixty-five peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (with eighteen student co-authors), including the edited volume Bonebeds: Genesis, Analysis, and Paleobiological Significance (University of Chicago Press), and his work has appeared in top scientific journals, including Science, Nature, Geology, Journal of Geology, Geological Society of America Bulletin, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, and Paleobiology. He has also published popular articles in Scientific American detailing his studies of dinosaur preservation in Madagascar (2007) and Montana (forthcoming). Rogers has continually supported his research (and that of his students) with grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Bureau of Land Management, the Keck Geology Consortium, and the David B. Jones Foundation. A Cretaceous turtle, Kinkonychelys rogersi, was named in his honor in 2009 in recognition of his contributions to the geology and paleontology of Madagascar.
Teaching and mentoring in the classroom and in the field are central themes of Rogers’ work at Macalester, and he was awarded the Jack and Marty Rossman Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012. He has accommodated more than eighty students in his research program, and most of these students have joined him in the field in Minnesota, Montana, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe. Forty Macalester students have completed honors theses in the Rogers lab. Many of these students have continued on to graduate programs, cool careers, and wonderful adventures of their own.
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Macalester's DeWitt Wallace Professorships were established in 1976 through a gift from DeWitt Wallace, son of Macalester president James Wallace. He and his wife Lila Acheson Wallace co-founded Reader’s Digest in 1920.
The Wallaces were noted philanthropists whose gifts generously supported Macalester as well as the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many other organizations.
