2022 Gilbert Harris Award to Carl W. Stock

Citation by Warren Allmon, Patricia H. Kelley, and William Ausich

Since 1993, the Gilbert Harris Award has been presented annually by PRI in recognition of career excellence in systematic paleontology. The recipient is a scientist who, through outstanding research in and commitment to the centrality of systematics in paleontology, has made a significant contribution to the science. 

Carl Stock is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in upstate New York – from Hartwick College and SUNY Binghamton, respectively, and his PhD from the University of North Carolina. He arrived at the University of Alabama in 1977, and retired from the faculty in 2008.

Carl has dedicated a large part of his professional life to the systematic study of stromatoporoids – that important group of sponges that unfortunately many paleontologists and almost all neontologists still seem to know little about. 

But that is not for lack of effort on Carl’s part. Stromatoporoids comprised the dominant contributors to middle Paleozoic reefs and thus are incredibly significant to our understanding of the history of reef systems. Perhaps because so few workers have studied stromatoporoids, their biological affinity was debated for many years. As a geology major, many of us were taught that they were “sponges indet” or “problematica” or just not worth bothering with; some workers – as recently as the 1960s -- classified them as corals. Within living memory they have also been considered foraminifers and cyanobacteria. Thanks in no small part to Carl’s dogged work, they are currently placed solidly within the Porifera. Carl has played a key role in our understanding this important and enigmatic group. 

Carl has described dozens of species (and redescribed type specimens) of stromatoporoids from across the continent, from the Appalachians to the mid-continent to Alaska and Ellesmere Island. He has revised “strom” terminology and classification and described their internal morphology, microstructure, and function. He has been a leader in applying multivariate statistics to stromatoporoid classification, as exemplified by a 2020 paper in Journal of Paleontology that uses average cluster linkage analysis and discriminant analysis to distinguish taxa and also to come to important biogeographic conclusions. He has published his systematic work in, for example, Journal of Paleontology, Palaeontographica Americana, and as hefty monographs, and he has been a major contributor to several chapters in two volumes of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology.

In addition to systematics, Carl’s work includes details of stromatoporid microstructure, which is foundational to systematics. His work on systematics is not just of interest to other specialists on the Porifera. His foundational systematics work has enabled his important contributions to our understanding of reefs, bioherms, and carbonate depositional systems, middle Paleozoic paleobiogeography and biostratigraphy, stromatoporoid evolution, and mass extinction. For example, a paper published in 2019 reevaluates the “Dasberg event” (a precursor to the better-studied Hangenberg extinction event) based on stromatoporoid-microbe symbiosis to draw conclusions important for understanding the complex history of the late Devonian. Carl has maintained an active research program since retirement. He is still conducting field work (with two knee replacements) and publishing his results, with, we are told, at least eight papers in the works.

Carl has also made tremendous contributions to the science of paleontology, especially to the Paleontological Society, including being a campus representative, a founding member, a chair, and an organizer of symposia for the Southeastern Section of the Society. He was a technical editor of the Journal of Paleontology, back when that meant underlining all capitalization and circling every hyphen in blue pencil (and when nearly all articles were systematic and particularly challenging to edit). He served as Secretary of the Society from 1999 to 2003. This was a pivotal time for the Society, when it transitioned from paper-only publications to paper and online publication of the journals. Carl was an indispensable member of the P.S. council team that moved the Society forward into the digital age. And he spent eight years as U.S. Correspondent/ Treasurer of the International Association for the Study of Fossil Cnidaria and another seven years on their Council.

Carl has also devoted enormous attention to education – both in the classroom and beyond. At the University of Alabama he taught nine different courses, advised 10 graduate students (most of whom conducted systematics-based theses) and served on 36 additional graduate thesis committees. His public outreach, especially regarding evolution, has been important in a state known for its antipathy to evolution. Carl was a founding member of the University’s Evolution Working Group, which established a major evolution outreach venue, the ALLELE (Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution) series, now in its 16th year. These lectures reach large numbers of nonspecialists and the general public. Carl has also been interviewed on NPR and spoken to Sunday School classes and amateur paleontologists throughout the state.

In summary, Carl Stock is distinguished in all aspects of his profession – teaching, research, University and professional service. He has maintained an outstanding, high-impact research program on a major but neglected group of fossil organisms during both his teaching career and during retirement. For all of this, especially his significant contributions to systematic paleontology, it is with pleasure and honor that the Paleontological Research Institution presents its 2022 Gilbert Harris Award to Carl Stock.

Information about the Gilbert Harris Award, including instructions for how to make a nomination and a listing of past recipients, may be accessed here.