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Fellow paleontologists, I'm delighted and honored to present to you Michal Kowalewski, this year's recipient of our Society's Charles Schuchert Award, the award we give to recognize excellence and promise among paleontologists less than 40 years in age.
I must take note here at the outset that I think that the late Toni Hoffman, Michal's MSc advisor at the University of Warsaw, would not have been surprised by Michal's receipt of this honor.
Michal joined the U.S. community of paleontologists in 1991, when he started his PhD program at the University of Arizona. And it was in the spring of 1992 when Michal joined Sally Walker and I on our first trip to the Colorado River delta. We got a lot done on that trip: we discovered large populations of the lingulid brachiopods that would form an important part of Michal's dissertation, we examined the taphonomic effects of the Chevrolet Suburban, we founded the Centra de Estudios de Almejas Muertas, and Michal got his visa extended.
Among the many challenges facing foreign students in the United States are the rules for visa extensions. In this case, the paperwork could not be done within the country; it required a visit to a U.S. consulate outside our borders. So, while still in Mexico, we put Michal, equipped with a Spanish vocabulary that ranged from "Buenos dias" all the way to "Cerveza, por favor," on a bus to Tijuana, where he spent two nights in the Zona Rosa to wait in line for his visa. He then took another bus, south of the border to Nogales, Sonora, and crossing the border there, made it back to Tucson. That adventure convinced me that Michal was somebody who, in order to get the job done, was willing to venture into the unknown, solve problems as they came up, follow unusual approaches, and wouldn't be easily discouraged.
In the field a year later, Michal came up to me, excited at a discovery he had made: a predatory drillhole in a lingulid shell. I'm afraid that I curbed my enthusiasm, but that didn't deter Michal's. We got back to Tucson on Saturday night. Monday morning, there was a manuscript on my desk. That experience told me that I was dealing with a...