Tidbits

Congratulations!
To Bill Clemens, who was awarded the Alfred S. Romer-George G. Simpson Medal "for sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate paleontology." This was awarded at the 66th annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paletonology in October 2006 and is the society's highest honor.

To Nick Pyenson on his appointment as a Graduate Student-In-Residence in the Department of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. As Nick spends a great deal of time in the collections of the NHMLAC, this appointment will assist Nick in continuing his dissertation research on the cetaceans of the Sharktooth Hill bonebed.

To Jere Lipps, who was awarded the 2006 International Joseph A. Cushman Award at the Cushman Award dinner and reception held at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in October. This award was established in 1979 to honor researchers who have made outstanding contributions in the field of foraminiferology. Jere was also named a Fellow of the Paleontological Society, an honor initiated in 2005 to recognize outstanding paleontologists in the Society.

To Research Associate, Eugenie Scott, who received an honorary degree from her alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

To Matt Wedel, who was awarded the Fourth International Award in Palaeontology Research Paleonturology '06 by Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis of Spain. The award, which includes a prize of 4,500 euros, is for Wedel's paper "Postcranial Skeletal Pneumaticity in Sauropods and Its Implications for Mass Estimates," published as a chapter in The Sauropods (UC Press).

To Becky Williams who received the Best Student Paper award at the Malacological Society of Australasia's Molluscs 2006 conference in December. The paper, entitled "Chemical defense in hatchlings of the Blue-ringed Octopus Hapalochlaena lunulata," was co-authored with former UCMP grad student Crissy Huffard, and UCMP Director Roy Caldwell.

And to David Lindberg on his keynote address at the same Malacological Society conference, outlining the evolutionary history of the Haliotidae or abalones. The talk featured work done in the UCMP Molecular Phylogeny Laboratory by Lindberg and former UCMP post-doc Dr. Charlie Wray. Dr. Lindberg also addressed attendees following the conference dinner.

Collections
We would like to extend our thanks to Bruce Lander and Paleo Environmental Associates, Inc of Altadena, California for the very generous donation of $700 for the purchase of a YS I85 Meter that will allow for simultaneous measurements of dissolved oxygen, conductivity, salinity and temperature, and for an additional $750 in support of our vertebrate collections.