S. David Webb

After receiving his Ph.D. in Paleontology at the University of California at Berkeley, S. David Webb taught for four decades in the departments of Zoology and Geology at the University of Florida, and also served as Curator of Fossil Vertebrates at the Florida Museum of Natural History. In 1997 he was promoted to the rank of Distinguished Research Professor and Curator. His research focused on the evolution and phylogeny of mammals. Most of his 120 publications grew out of extensive field work in Nebraska, Florida, Honduras, El Salvador, and Brazil. In Florida his field teams developed specialized techniques for recovering well-preserved archaeological and paleontological material from underwater sites. He served as President of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. In 1991 he headed the U.S. delegation to the International Quaternary Association meetings in Beijing, China. He was visiting professor at Yale University in 1976-77 and at the Natural History Museum in Stuttgart in 1991. Since 2003 he has served as adjunct curator with the Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, and as Distinguished Research Curator Emeritus with the University of Florida. Among his books are The Great American Biotic Interchange (Plenum, 1985) with Frank G. Stehli and First Floridians and Last Mastodons (Springer, 2004).