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My first contact with Rod Feldmann was his voicemail message: “An incredible set of circumstances makes it impossible for me to come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible.”  I was considering coming to Kent for graduate school and I thought, Wow, this guy is either really important or really arrogant.  I was right and wrong.  He was never arrogant, but always important, and eventually of utmost importance to me.

Rod was born in a gas station in Steele, North Dakota.  His childhood experiences greatly shaped his life, and we loved his stories about smoking driftwood down by the Missouri River and working on the highway department away from home at age 14! His parents Lois and Red DuPree gave him the confidence.  Although he was quite a lot older than his brothers, he remembers Frank George (left) demanding to be fed only French toast and walking all over London with Don (middle) when Don was a graduate student in Wales. The brothers did not see each other often, but they respectfully sparred on email over opposing political viewpoints and opinions on the merits of H.P. Lovecraft. Frank George came to visit in hospice and they zoom called with Don.

Rod spent a year at MIT, and he received his B.S. M.S, and Ph.D. from the University of North Dakota. As an undergraduate, he paid his way by cooking pizza at North Dakota’s first pizza shop. When he applied for the job, they asked him if he knew how to make pizza. He said of course! Never having cooked it once. His graduate advisor was F. D. “Bud” Holland, Jr., and Rod remembers cooking macaroni and cheese after an afternoon nap only to go up to work at school until late, having a beer with Bud afterward. He had a ferret named Sleaze that occasionally bit him. At his marine biology field camp in California, he met Joel Hedgepeth, a contemporary of John Steinbeck, and cooked a road killed deer for everyone.

Rod joined the Geology faculty at Kent in 1965 and was actively researching and teaching until his death on May 1, 2024. Upon coming to 5X���� as a temporary instructor, he threw himself into the local geology, ran huge undergraduate field trips to local geology hotspots, and co-wrote several guidebooks of local interest.  When not at school, he coached his daughter Aissa’s little league softball team, sailed on Twin Lakes, and refinished furniture. He was proud of the fact that the only time he was in the Ohio State football stadium was to watch his daughter in the marching band.

An enormous contribution and one of which he was very proud was Rod’s field work and interest in bringing southern hemisphere fossils into the limelight. He spent several field seasons in Antarctica and New Zealand, and with me, his wife Carrie Schweitzer, conducted field work in South America with his beloved colleague Silvio Casadío.  Rod loved traveling with students, taking them all over the world and even posing as a parent to get a family discount for student entry into a castle. He was up for anything, and ate nearly everything he was served, even sea cucumber slime in Japan, but rather surprisingly declining to try pig liver cooked in its own blood in China. We traveled everywhere—I once calculated that we were traveling 2 or 3 months out of the year. We did three bucket-list trips, to Greece, the Galapagos/Machu Picchu, and Iceland. Probably our favorite trip was our tour of the national parks in the Four Corners Region at Christmas time: cold, but empty and beautiful.

AT KSU, Rod taught both undergraduate and graduate courses and managed a robust internationally-known research program at the 5X���� in the Department of Geology [Earth Sciences]. During his tenure he successfully graduated 45 M.S. students and 13 Ph.D. students as their primary advisor and committee chair. In addition, he mentored numerous undergraduates and hosted many international visiting scientists who conducted research in his lab. His enthusiasm for science, especially paleontology was conveyed to students through his deep understanding and excitement for the subject. Rod’s ability to show students how to ask, and answer, questions through the research process made him an outstanding research mentor. His focus on teaching and performing high quality scholarship and mastery of fundamental research skills meant his students were well prepared for their future educational steps or careers.

Rod’s body of published research concentrated on the systematics, evolution, ecology, and biogeography of fossil decapod crustaceans (shrimps, lobsters, and crabs). He also worked on other allied arthropod groups including phyllocarids, isopods, stomatopods, and horseshoe crabs, as well as clams, worms, snails, and brachiopods (even entertaining a student interested in bryozoans). His field and museum research was international in nature taking him and his students to many locations, including Antarctica, Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, China, Japan, and the countries of western, central and eastern Europe.

Professionally, Rod was president of the Paleontological Society in 1993 and was co-editor of the Journal of Paleontology from 1976 to 1982. He also served as president of the Paleontological Research Institution. He published over 450 scientific papers between 1962 and 2024 primarily on fossil decapod crustaceans (lobsters, crabs, and shrimps). Rod was co-editor of the revision of the Decapoda Volume of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, the major reference volume in the field, of which half was published before his passing and which continues under my watch. He edited Fossils of Ohio, a now classic book published by the Ohio Department of Geological Survey, which remains a big seller. He was very serious about service to the profession.  He reviewed nearly every paper he was requested to, and he was the introductory lab coordinator in the department at Kent State until his death. He even held meetings with students at home while in hospice.

Rod loved traveling, cooking, telling stories, entertaining graduate students and visiting scientists, reading crime novels, driving his classic 1937 gangster-style Packard 6, conducting geological field work, and working with students on research and teaching. He was positive until the end, anxiously awaiting the next installment of 8 Days that made Rome and commenting on the state of American politics.  He lived intensely and well.   He was an outstanding mentor and role model for students and colleagues, and his research continues to influence scientists worldwide. His philosophy, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,” never wavered. His life’s work demonstrates his commitment to science, knowledge, and conveying the excitement of paleontology to audiences of all kinds.

Selected publications

De Grave, S., N. D. Pentcheff, S. T. Ahyong, T.-Y. Chan, K. A. Crandall, P. C. Dworschak, D. L. Felder, R. M. Feldmann, C. H. J. M. Fransen, L. Y. D. Goulding, R. Lemaitre, M. L. Low, J. W. Martin, P. K. L. Ng, C. E. Schweitzer, S. H. Tan, D. Tshudy, and R. Wetzer. 2009. A. classification of living and fossil genera of decapod crustaceans. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology, Supplement 21:.1-109.

Feldmann, R.M., Casadío, S., Chirino-Gálvez, L., and Aguirre-Urreta, M., 1995, Fossil decapod crustaceans from the Jagüel and Roca Formations (Maastrichtian-Danian) of the Neuquén Basin, Argentina: The Paleontological Society Memoir 43, p. 1-22.

Feldmann, R. M., and C. E. Schweitzer. 2006. Paleobiogeography of Southern Hemisphere decapod Crustacea. Journal of Paleontology, v. 80, p. 83-103.

Feldmann, R. M., Bice, K. L., Schweitzer Hopkins, C., Salva, E. W., and Pickford, K., 1998, Decapod crustaceans from the Eocene Castle Hayne Limestone, North Carolina: Paleoceanographic implications. The Paleontological Society Memoir 48,p.1‑28.

Feldmann, R.M., Tshudy, D., and Thomson, M.R.A., 1993, Late Cretaceous and Paleocene decapod crustaceans from James Ross Basin, Antarctic Peninsula: The Paleontological Society Memoir 28, p. 1-41.

Feldmann, R.M., and Woodburne, M.O., eds., 1988, Geology and paleontology of Seymour Island, Antarctic Peninsula: Geological Society of America, Memoir 169, 566 p.

Feldmann, R. M., C. E. Schweitzer, S. Hu, Q. Zhang, C. Zhou, T. Xie, J. Huang, and W. Wen. 2012. Macrurous Decapoda from the Luoping Biota (Middle Triassic) of China. Journal of Paleontology, 86: 425-441.