Geerat Vermeij received his peers' highest commendation last week when the UC Davis Academic Senate named him the Faculty Research Lecturer for 2004.

The 62nd annual announcement of the honor, which recognizes exceptional research contributions of a campus faculty member, was made Feb. 18 during the Senate's winter meeting. Traditionally, the recipient presents a lecture at a future date on campus.

Vermeij, an Academy Fellow and a professor of paleoecology, is probably best known for his work chronicling the arms race among long-extinct mollusks and their predators. By examining and analyzing fossils for evidence of interspecies competition and predation, Vermeij has prompted the field of paleobiology to acknowledge the influences creatures have on fashioning each other's evolutionary fates.

"I love science and I love the combination of doing scholarly work and teaching," Vermeij said upon receiving the award. "I deeply appreciate all my colleagues and students."

Tilahun Yilma, a veterinary virologist who served on the selection committee, said Vermeij has made major contributions to research on the movement of species between different marine environments after the removal of barriers, and he has published on such varied topics as bird evolution and leaf shape. "He is an expert in so many fields," Yilma said.

The Faculty Research Lecturer award is given annually to a faculty member whose research contributions have greatly enhanced human knowledge and brought widespread honor and recognition to themselves and the university. In 1951, the UC Davis Academic Senate, composed of ladder-rank faculty members, assumed responsibility for the award.

For more about Vermeij and his work, see next week's Dateline. -- By Clifton Parker