Robert L. Carroll

Robert "Bob" Lynn Carroll

Returning from London, in 1964 Carroll joined the permanent staff of McGill University as curator of geology at the Redpath Museum and became the curator of vertebrate paleontology the following year.^[2][11] At McGill, he was an assistant professor of zoology from 1964 to 1969, an associate professor of biology from 1969-1974, a full professor from 1974 onwards, and was appointed Strathcona Professor of Zoology in 1987.^[1][11] From 1985 to 1991 he was director of the Redpath Museum.^[11] He was an active professor until 2003, after which he was an emeritus professor.

Carroll died on April 8, 2020, in

Carroll was a prolific publisher and studied numerous major topics within paleontology and vertebrate evolution. He is best known for his work addressing the origins and early evolution of amphibians[13]^[14][15] and reptiles^{[16][17][18][19][20]} and published extensively on lepospondyls,^{[21][22][23][24]} which have been variably considered as ancestors of amphibians or early reptiles. In a related vein, he also published numerous summary articles examining the evolution of tetrapods on land.^{[25][26][27][28]} He is also well published on marine reptiles.^{[29][30][31][32][33]}

He also published a number of books, including Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution (1988),^[34] which remains a seminal textbook, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution (1997),^[35] and The Rise of Amphibians: 365 Million Years of Evolution (2009).^[36] He coauthored another textbook, Paleontology (1998),^[37] and a volume of the Handbook of Paleoherpetology on lepospondyls (1998).^[38] He also edited a volume of the Amphibian Biology series on the evolutionary history of amphibians (2000).^[39]

Carroll contributed to naming an extensive number of new species, outlined below:

Several taxa are named after Carroll, including the teleost fish Mahengecharax carrolli, the '

Carroll was awarded a large number of awards, including the Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society (1978), of which he was one of the first recipients, the Elkanah Billings Medal of the Geological Association of Canada (1991), the Willet G. Miller Medal of the Royal Society of Canada (2001), of which he was made an honorary member in 1993, and the Romer-Simpson Medal of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (2004), the society's most prestigious honor,^[4] and was appointed a member of the Order of Canada (2019).^[51][52] Carroll also served as the president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology from 1982 to 1983.^[53] The Canadian Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's Carroll Prize is named after Carroll.^[54]

Carroll is often credited with being the "father of Canadian vertebrate paleontology"^[4] because many contemporary Canadian paleontologists can trace their graduate training back to him. Carroll supervised numerous graduate students, many of whom went on to lead their own successful research labs, including Jason Anderson (University of Calgary), Michael Caldwell (University of Alberta), Philip Currie (University of Alberta), and Robert Reisz (University of Toronto).

References