Donald C. Rhoads

Professor Emeritus of Geology and Geophysics

 

I retired from the Department of Geology-Geophysics after 20 years of teaching graduate courses in paleoecology, sedimentology, marine ecology, and a popular undergraduate course on Long Island Sound (1965-1985). Circa 1983, graduate student Joe Germano, undergraduate Gene Revelas, and post-doctoral fellow Larry Boyer formed a start-up company in Science Park called Marine Surveys, Inc. This technology was based on our work to develop an efficient protocol for

remote sensing and mapping of disturbance gradients on the seafloor (REMOTS). Marine Surveys, was an immediate success, and so I requested early retirement in order to dedicate full time to this enterprise. The small tech firm was sold in 1986 to Science Applications International (SAI), and I opened a satellite office in Woods Hole, MA. Our technology is being used all over the world’s oceans and, as such, received the first SAIC Excellence in Science and Technology Award in 1994. This was followed by being a finalist in the 1995 Smithsonian Computerworld competition. Although no longer an academic, I taught a summer course for several years at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA for the Boston Univ. Marine program. I decided to retire again in 2000 related to health issues and was honored by my amazing Yale students and post-docs with an International Symposium held at the Belle Baruch Institute. This resulted in publication of a “Festschrift.” The Yale REMOTS legacy continues with world-wide projects being conducted by InSPIer, Inc. of Newport, R.I. I live in Falmouth, Massachusetts with my wife, Christobel (Christy), a surrogate “mother’ to many G and G students during the Yale years. I occupy my time now with my classic car collection, still challenged by electro-mechanical hypotheses.