2008 CUSHMAN AWARD WINNER, GEORGE H. SCOTT

Abstract

Fifty years ago, in 1957, George Scott took up his first and only professional appointment, as a foraminiferal micropaleontologist at the New Zealand Geological Survey in Lower Hutt. Although now retired from paid employment, he still goes in to work to undertake foraminiferal research nearly every day. Thus, George is now the Southern Hemisphere’s most experienced foraminiferal research scientist. Throughout his career, he has been a world leader in studies on the evolution of foraminifera using biometrics, statistical evaluation and quantification of foraminiferal data, and evolution of planktic foraminifera with emphasis on Southern Hemisphere temperate lineages. George Scott, along with the late Norcott Hornibrook and late Graham Jenkins, played the major role in elevating Cenozoic foraminiferal biostratigraphy of NZ to the international reputation it now enjoys. George Scott spent his childhood in the small rural district of Riwaka, in New Zealand’s South Island. He was dux (valedictorian) at Motueka High School in 1949, and gained a master of arts in geomorphology (1954) and a master of science in micropaleontology (1957, The Distribution of Fossil Foraminiferal Populations) from the University of Canterbury, NZ. From there, he joined Norcott Hornibrook as a foraminiferal micropaleontologist in the NZ Geological Survey and in the same year married fellow Survey paleontologist Anne Boreham. George and Anne have three children, Andrew, Michael and Pania, all now grown up and married. George has always kept fit. In earlier years, he would be found most lunch times at the local pool swimming laps. George has always shared the family car with Anne and thus his usual mode of transport to work and around the Hutt Valley is by bicycle. Nowadays …