Frederick R. Schram: Recipient of the Crustacean Society Award for Research Excellence

The Crustacean Society Award for Excellence in Research was presented to Professor Frederick R. Schram at the July 2005 summer meeting held in conjunction with the 6 International Crustacean Congress at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Dr. Schram was born and raised in Chicago, received his B.S. in Biology from Loyola University of Chicago in 1965 and his Ph.D. in Paleozoology from the University of Chicago in 1968. His studies of crustaceans began with fossils collected in his home state of Illinois from the wellknown Mazon Creek faunas of Pennsylvanian (Carboniferous) age. His first faculty appointment was at Eastern Illinois University, after which he moved in 1978 to the San Diego Natural History Museum. After a long tenure at the San Diego Museum, including a stint as Acting Director, he was affiliated with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County from 1991 to 1992. He was then invited to take the professorship of Systematics and Zoogeography in the Faculty of Biology at the University of Amsterdam, where he worked until his recent retirement. His chair was attached to the Zoological Museum of Amsterdam and had many noteworthy occupants, among which was the carcinologist Jan Stock, best known for his work on amphipods and copepods, and the biogeographer Max Weber, the describer of Weber’s Line that is parallel to Wallace’s Line in Indonesia. Dr. Schram has been intimately associated with The Crustacean Society. He was among the members of the Organizing Council, after which he was on the Board of Governors before serving as the Society’s third President. He also put in a term as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Crustacean Biology.