With profound sadness, the MCZ bids farewell to Farish A. Jenkins

It was with profound sadness that MCZ bid farewell to longtime colleague and friend Farish A. Jenkins Jr., Professor of Biology, Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, who passed away on November 11, 2012. One of the world’s leading biologists, Jenkins considered himself a “hybrid” of anatomist, zoologist and vertebrate paleontologist. Combining a polymath’s curiosity with a scientist’s tenacity, he worked both in the lab with live animals and out in the field with fossils, trekking across the globe from East Africa to Greenland, the American West to the Arctic tundra.

His quest to solve one of the great mysteries of evolutionary biology—how swimming and crawling creatures eventually evolved to walk, run, jump and fly—was his lifelong passion. In 2004, Jenkins was part of a team that traveled to Ellesmere Island in Nunavut Territory, Canada, where they made the groundbreaking discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, the 375-million-year-old fossil that represents a critical transitional stage between fish and four-legged animals.

Prof. Jenkins was one of Harvard’s most beloved professors, a man of rigorously high standards who took the time to know every student by name and craft lectures that were part science, part art, part adventure and completely unforgettable. A stylish dresser in his pressed white shirts, dapper suits and polished shoes, Jenkins was nonetheless not above donning a body stocking painted with a human skeleton for an anatomy lecture or putting on a peg leg to act out sections of Moby Dick to demonstrate theories of human gait. His intricate anatomical illustrations, made on the blackboard with pieces of chalk whose ends he honed to sharp tips, revealed yet another talent: world-class artist. “

Farish A. Jenkins was the epitome of a Harvard professor. He was a true gentleman with impeccable manners and he had a deep love of learned institutions. He cared deeply for his students, and he was for many of them the best teacher they would ever know. He was a superb scientist and model university citizen. Every pursuit received 100% of his effort, and he expected the same of his students and his faculty colleagues,” recalls Professor James McCarthy.

Among his many accolades, Jenkins served as president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in 1981–1982, was the recipient of its Romer-Simpson Medal for lifetime achievement in 2009, received a Harvard College Professorship in 2011 and was honored with a June 2012 MCZ symposium celebrating his decades-long career. He will long be remembered for his profound impact on countless students, colleagues and collaborators worldwide.

A memorial fund has been established at the MCZ to support student fieldwork in evolutionary biology. Contributions may be made to: Farish A. Jenkins Jr. Fund, c/o The Museum of Comparative Zoology, 26 Oxford Street, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138