Ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues, it is with great pleasure that I speak on behalf of Dr. Ronald L. Parsley, Professor Emeritus at Tulane University, the recipient of the Paleontological Society’s Pojeta Award for 2017. Ron has been a fixture of our field since the 1960s and did much of the formative work on homalozoan echinoderms. Ron received his Bachelor’s Degree from UCLA and MS and PhD Degrees from the University of Cincinnati under Kenneth E. Caster. It is fitting that Ron is receiving the Pojeta Award and all too poignant with the sad news of John’s passing earlier this year. Ron has been a lifelong friend of John and Mary Lou Pojeta, who took him under their wing 57 years ago when he first arrived in Cincinnati to start his graduate studies.

Ron has played an important role in fostering the exchange of paleontological data and ideas between the Eastern Block and the West, both during and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He has worked extensively in the Czech Republic and Russia describing the echinoderm faunas—many for the first time in English—and building relationships with local scientists and institutions that continue to this day. More recently, he began collaborations in China that have led to a series of papers that provide a new look at Cambrian echinoderm faunas.

One of the most profound aspect of Ron’s impact on our field is his generosity of both expertise and time. Ron loves nothing better than to help others and learn from their discoveries. Whether he is assisting a young researcher make local contacts, teaching the lost art of making latex casts of fossils, or hosting the Friends of the Echinoderm meeting each year at GSA, Ron’s ever-present smile benefits us all and makes the Paleontological Society a better organization.

Ron’s long history of international work inspired him to take on the responsibility of chairing the PalSIRP/Sepkoski Grants Committee. Since 1997, Ron has been the driving force behind the success of this program, which has jumpstarted the careers of many young scientists by facilitating paleontological research in countries where the potential is great, but resources are few. Ron has been the international face of this program for 20 years, and it is no understatement that he has been, in a very real sense, the Paleontological Society’s international ambassador. He has been the visionary behind the program’s continuing success, and his tireless service has raised the reputation of the Paleontological Society, and been a driving factor behind international paleontological collaboration. In 2016, Ron, along with the Paleontological Society, was awarded a special medal by the Palaeontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences honoring the PalSIRP/Sepkoski Grants program and its impact on Russian Paleontology.

More recently, Ron has argued for—and ultimately received—an increase in the level of funding from the PS Council for this grant program. Last year, the Sepkoski Grants program was expanded to Latin America. This year, nine countries were represented by awardees, including the first funded proposals from Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In 2018 the program will expand to include Africa, furthering the impact our society is having on the international paleontology community.

The success of this program is very much the result of the enormous amount of effort that Ron puts into the Sepkoski Grants program each year. He sends out announcements to institutions and researchers all over the world advertising the program, requests letters of support, collates the files, and has them reviewed by a three-person committee. Once the committee decided on awardees, he begins the painstaking process of legally sending the awarded funds to recipients in countries that often have Byzantine laws and complex international agreements with the United States. Through the years he has managed to navigate these tricky waters and get the job done in a timely and efficient manner.

For his years of service to the Paleontological Society, its membership, and serving as our point of contact to the larger international community, I think of no one more deserving of the Pojeta Award than Dr. Ronald L. Parsley.

October 22, 2017