Donald C. Rhoads

Donald Rhoads, professor emeritus of geology and geophysics, retired from the Department of Geology-Geophysics after twenty 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 work to develop an efficient protocol for remote sensing and mapping of disturbance gradients on the seafloor (REMOTS).  Professor Rhoads’s 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, Professor Rhoads taught a summer course for several years at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA for the Boston University Marine program. He decided to retire again in 2000 and was honored by Yale students and postdocs with an International Symposium held at the Belle Baruch Institute. The Yale REMOTS legacy continues with world-wide projects being conducted by InSPIer, Inc. of Newport, R.I.