Scientist – Ecology, Malacology, Biology
Professor of Geology, University of California, Davis
Geerat J. Vermeij is one of the world’s preeminent scientists in ecology, malacology and biology. Born in Holland, he came to America, lived in Nutley and graduated from Nutley High School in the Class of 1965. He whizzed through Princeton University in three years. His next destination was Yale University where he received his Ph.D. He taught at the University of Maryland, beginning as an instructor and advancing to Professor of Zoology. He is presently Professor of Geology at the University of California at Davis.
Dr. Vermeij, in his autobiography Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life, describes in vivid and entertaining prose just how he broke out of the bonds of society as a blind person and into the world of ecology, malacology, and biology. Dr. Vermeij has held a number of teaching positions in scientific institutions around the world. He served as the President of the Society of Naturalists in 1997 and is a member of scientific associations such as the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Ecological Society of America, the Paleontology Society, the Netherlands Malacology Society and the Institute of Malacology.
Dr. Vermeij is the author of major scientific publications including Biogeography and Adaptation: Patterns of Marine Life, Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life and Natural History of Shells.
He is the recipient of honors such as the J. S. Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences and the MacArthur Award.
Brian Buhrow, Chairman of the National Foundation of the Blind, Research and Development Committee, in reviewing Vermeij’s book, Privileged Hands: A Scientific Life, wrote, “What makes this [Vermeij] journey interesting, however, is not so much how he was able to break into a new scientific field in the mid 1960’s, but rather that blindness was not, and should not have been, his overriding concern. For every page Vermeij spends discussing aspects of the way blindness affected his progress into and through his career, he spends at least ten times that many discussing the various theories, questions, scientific puzzles, and his own personal development as an Academic in the process of becoming a full-fledged professor.”
Source: Nutley Hall of Fame, Panel of Judges