Richard Swann Lull
| Richard Swann Lull | |
|---|---|
Portrait of Lull by William Sergeant Kendall
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| Born |
November 6, 1867 Annapolis, Maryland |
| Died | April 22, 1957 (aged 89) |
| Fields | Paleontology |
| Institutions |
Massachusetts Agricultural College Yale University |
| Alma mater |
Rutgers College Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | Henry Fairfield Osborn |
| Notable students | George Gaylord Simpson |
Richard Swann Lull (November 6, 1867 – April 22, 1957) was an American paleontologist and Sterling Professor at Yale University who is largely remembered now for championing a Pre-NeoDarwinian Synthesis view of evolution, whereby mutation(s) could unlock presumed "genetic drives" that, over time, would lead populations to increasingly extreme phenotypes (and perhaps, ultimately, to extinction).
Lull was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of naval officer Edward Phelps Lull and Elizabeth Burton, daughter of General Henry Burton. He married Clara Coles Boggs and he has a daughter Dorothy. He majored in zoology at Rutgers College where he received both his undergraduate and master's degrees (M.S. 1896). He worked for the Division of Entomology of the United States Department of Agriculture, but in 1894 became an assistant professor of zoology at the State Agricultural College in Amherst, Massachusetts (now the University of Massachusetts Amherst). Lull's interest in fossil footprints began at Amherst College, renowned for its collection of fossil footprints, and eventually led him to switch from entomology to paleontology.
In 1899 Lull worked as a member of the American Museum of Natural History's expedition to Bone Cabin Quarry, Wyoming, helping to collect that museum's brontosaur skeleton. In 1902 he again joined an American Museum team in Montana, then studied under Columbia University Prof. Henry Fairfield Osborn. In 1903 he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, and in 1906, after a brief time at Amherst, was named Assistant Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology in Yale College and Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He stayed at Yale for the next 50 years. In 1933 Lull was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.
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