Paul Alfred Colinvaux

By five years I worked with him in Panama and learned so much about laboratory techniques for extracting fossil pollen.

Paul was the best mentor any graduate student could ever have... I was so lucky to have worked with him for many years!!

Miriam Steinitz Kannan

I never actually met Paul but I was well aware of his contributions, especially in the field of ecology and palynology. I used his textbook in several of the courses I taught and his pollen work in the Arctic has played an important role in my own research. His pollen guide to the flora of the Amazon is one of the only guides to the flora of that region and I use it often. We will all miss him as an individual but especially as the great scientist he was.

A wonderful larger-than-life colleague at STRI, remembered fondly. If Paul was in the audience and nodded vigorously in the affirmative in response to some declaration or conclusion, then you knew you got it right! And vice versa!! And what an orator he was.

My deepest condolences.
We met both of you on the WH Yacht Club porch many years ago and Paul, a stranger at the time, enchanted us with his brilliance and stories. His collection of books is legend.
He will be sorely missed.

There are not enough words to circumscribe the legacy of Paul in the community of ecologists and tropical quaternarists. During his stay in Panama, and under his leadership, his teachings, right comments and his seriously merry mood, marked my professional course in these areas. Memories of Paul will be living always maintained in our minds.

I often tell the story of taking Introductory Ecology at OSU in the early 80s and Dr. Colinvaux's entertaining and memorable lectures. "Why Big Fierce Animals are Rare" is a book I've referred others to over the years, and I still remember some of his lectures. He left his mark on my undergraduate studies, and I'd like to think that my continued pursuit of science has some of the passion he showed toward the subject. My condolences to his family.

Paul will be greatly missed by myself and many others. Among my favorite memories is rowing (racing) single sculling shells with (against) Paul on the Panama Canal. Paul seemed to have a knack of presenting challenges, academic, physical philosophical. I enjoyed it and will miss it greatly.