by Charles Miller, Jr. and Kent Newsham
Dr. Roger J. Cuffey, professor emeritus of paleontology, died on January 1, 2022. He is probably best remembered for his forty years at Penn State, where he mentored students and conducted research. He retired in 2007 but continued publishing, leading and attending field trips, editing and advising, and attending conferences.
Cuffey specialized in fossil bryozoans, but his paleontological research was diverse including topics ranging from fossil fish to insects to dinosaur footprints to military geology to Pleistocene vertebrates. His research contributions are widely recognized especially for his work in paleobryozoology. Two fossil bryozoan species are named in his honor: the Late Ordovician bryozoan Cuffeyella arachnoidea from the Cincinnati region and Diplotrypa cuffeyi from Middle Ordovician strata of the Canadian Arctic. He authored more than 300 articles and monographs. His most-cited work is a 1985 Geology article presenting an expanded classification for carbonate reef-rock textures.
He had been a captain in the U.S. Army and had specialized training in the chemical corps, ending as an epidemiological analyst at the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. That training greatly influenced the rest of his personal and professional life. This is reflected in his organizational skills, as with geology field trips, and in coping with discomforts and physical challenges, also useful for field work.
A People Person
To say he impacted people is an understatement. He was always very kind, encouraging, and helpful to literally anybody who was interested in fossils, geology, and other topics. He treated everybody as if they were all equally important. He also took the time to help, spending a great deal of time and energy helping students, colleagues, and others advance their lives and careers. His influence can be seen in his former students and in his two sons, both of whom are geologists.
One favorite story is about how a young girl and her parents went fossil collecting with him, inspiring that girl to become a paleontologist. That young girl, Isabel Montañez, now a distinguished professor and director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at University of California, Davis, said that Roger “is single handedly the reason she went to college to be a paleontologist.” She served as both vice president and president of the Geological Society of America and said, “somewhere in the process I became intrigued with paleoclimatology but my past decade of publications illustrates how much the ‘life’ part of the Earth system is at my core.”
Impact on Students
Kent Newsham remembers his first encounter with Cuffey during his freshman winter after taking GEOSC 1 Physical Geology in the winter quarter of the 1974-75 academic year. He met with Cuffey because he was trying to decide whether he should officially enroll in the Geosciences or Earth Science program.
“He had that corner office that seemed like a catacomb of fossils, where it felt like walking through ‘canyons’ of bryozoans to get to his office desk,” said Newsham. “Upon first contact, I was met with a man of significant stature, but it was that ‘Grand Canyon’ of a smile that made me immediately feel relaxed and comfortable in his presence, especially as I was a rather shy freshman.”
Newsham also said that Cuffey always looked after his students by informing and guiding them. “It was Roger that informed me about Dr. Al Guber’s Wallops Island Program, a ten-week live-in program at the Wallops Island Marine Science Consortium, located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. This was a life changing experience for me, personally, as it provided an incredible discipline range in ‘mind expansion’ and allowed for personal engagement with numerous influential professors. Wallops provided me with the subject matter of my undergraduate thesis, ‘The Origin of the Carolina Bays.’ ”
Charles Miller, Jr. recounts his first encounter with Dr. Cuffey on a 1974 cross-country geology field trip that he co-led. “Because of his stint in the Army, I wondered, would the field trip be run like boot camp? Was there going to be reveille each morning? In retrospect, this probably was my most impressionable geology course. What a great way to study regional geology.”
Cuffey was an adviser for Anne Lutz. She said that she will miss him greatly. “He mentored my change in focus in graduate school from geomorphology to paleontology, advised me what courses to take to bring me up to speed, and how to be a good paleontological field person, said Lutz. “I will never forget one of his field mottos, ‘A geologist knows no weather,’ which completely dismayed me, but which I well understood. No matter my choice of jobs, he advised and supported me, and I considered him my life coach as well as my adviser.”
Always a Scientist
Miller said, “He was an amazing source of information, both geological and otherwise. I once asked a historical question about the Middle East, and he gave a twenty-five-minute recitation going back at least a thousand years. At dinner two days before his death, I mentioned a misidentification of a planet. He gave the celestial explanation as to why that identification was wrong.”
Newsham’s last contact with Cuffey was in a Christmas letter where he updated him on his family’s success and stayed true to his passion with the following in reference to his son, Kurt’s trek in Nepal with a photo of Mount Everest included.
“Look at the middle of its face; note the ‘grain’ of the terrain, enhanced by the snow streaks, which slant downwards to the left,” wrote Cuffey. “Those are thin beds of limestone, which Indian and Chinese geologists have found to be of Ordovician age, ~450 million years old. Ordovician strata, like around Cincinnati, Ohio, often contain nice fossil bryozoans, although no one has looked for such specimens up here yet, so far as I know. That would be a great research project for someone capable of high-altitude fieldwork, which unfortunately I am not; but I hope another paleobryozoologist will take up the challenge here.”
Newsham said, “Roger was a true scientist, educator, and mentor. My condolences go out to his family, Cliff, Barbara, Kurt, and Pete. Know that Roger was an important influence on many students, impacting the lives of those that have done good for science and society. His legacy lives on through those many he touched. He is missed but not forgotten. With deepest sympathy but greatest good fortune to have been one of Roger’s kids, Roger and out!”