John Rodgers (11 July 1914 – 7 March 2004) was an American geologist who was Silliman Professor of Geology at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Biography

He was born in Albany, New York to Henry and Louise (Allen) Rodgers and was educated at

Albany Academy The Albany Academy is an independent college preparatory day school for boys in Albany, New York, USA, enrolling students from Preschool (age 3) to Grade 12. It was established in 1813 by a charter signed by Mayor Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer ...

. He then studied at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

, where he was awarded a B.A. in 1936 and an M.S. in geology in 1937. He gained a post-graduate Ph.D. at Yale University in 1944. In the latter year, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he joined the Military Geology Branch of the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

and was delegated to map beachheads from

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

in Siberia down to China and Japan. In 1946 he accepted a post in the Department of Geology at Yale, becoming in 1962 the Benjamin Silliman Professor, a position he was to hold for the rest of his career. At Yale he began to research the geology of Connecticut, producing a full geological map of the state in 1985. In 1948 he was appointed an assistant editor of the ''

American Journal of Science The ''American Journal of Science'' (''AJS'') is the United States of America's longest-running scientific journal, having been published continuously since its conception in 1818 by Professor Benjamin Silliman, who edited and financed it himself ...

'', becoming its editor from 1954 to 1995. In 1970 he served as President of the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitchco ...

. He was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1973–74. In his private life he was a proficient pianist and linguist. He died in 2004 at his home in Hamden, Connecticut and is buried at Evergreen Cemetery, New Haven in a plot reserved for people who have donated their bodies to science.

Honors and awards

* Member,

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

* Member,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

* Member,

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

* Fellow,

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

* Fellow,

* 1947

Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merit ...

from the U. S. Army * 1981

Penrose Medal The Penrose Medal was created in 1925 by R.A.F. Penrose, Jr., as the top prize awarded by the Geological Society of America. Originally created as the Geological Society of America Medal it was soon renamed the Penrose Medal by popular assent of t ...

of the Geological Society of America * 1987 Prix Gaudry of the

Geological Society of France Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Eart ...

* 1987 Fourmarier Medal of the

Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium The Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium (french: Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, sometimes referred to as ') is the independent learned society of science and arts of the French Comm ...

Works

* ''Principles of Stratigraphy'' with Carl Dunbar (1957) * ''The Company I Kept'', autobiography (2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodgers, John 1914 births 2004 deaths People from Albany, New York Cornell University alumni Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni 20th-century American geologists Presidents of the Geological Society of America Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Members of the American Philosophical Society