Peter Raimondi, professor and chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, has received the 2011-12 Outstanding Faculty Award from the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences. The annual award is the division's highest honor for faculty achievement, recognizing combined excellence in research, teaching, and service.
"Professor Pete Raimondi is an extraordinary faculty member," wrote Paul Koch, dean of physical and biological sciences, in a letter announcing the award. "He has and continues to conduct outstanding research, has provided exemplary teaching at all levels, and contributes valuable service to the marine ecology discipline locally, nationally, and internationally. He is a tremendous asset to our campus."
Raimondi is recognized nationally and internationally for his long-term studies on coastal marine ecosystems and on the interplay between life-history traits of marine organisms, environmental features, and population genetic structure. He has overseen surveys of the intertidal coast of North America from Baja California to Alaska with the support of large multi-institutional, interdisciplinary programs that he helped develop and launch (e.g., the PISCO program). Through his work in another large collaboration, the PANGAS program, Raimondi has been a pioneer in ecology-based management of fisheries; PANGAS brings together ecologists, oceanographers, geneticists, social scientists and marine policy makers to develop ecosystem- and community-based management for sustainable coastal fisheries in northern Mexico.
ln addition to his extensive research, Raimondi has served as chair of the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department since 2003, and he took on additional responsibilities as associate dean of the division for the 2011-12 academic year. "The faculty and staff in ecology and evolutionary biology enthusiastically support him as chairperson and agree that Pete sets the tone for the department, promoting an amenable, collaborative, and collegial working environment. He is perceived as fair-minded and dedicated to all aspects of the student experience and faculty research excellence," Koch wrote.
Raimondi also serves on a wide range of campus and systemwide committees, as well as advisory panels for a variety of state and federal agencies. For the past decade, he has been a subject matters editor for Ecology, the leading international ecological journal.
As he took on these heavy administrative tasks, Raimondi has never reduced his teaching load. He teaches intensive undergraduate field classes and other courses integral to the undergraduate marine biology major, as well as a critical statistics course for graduate students. Raimondi has advised and co-advised a large number of graduate students, and they have gone on to jobs in academia and with marine management agencies.
Raimondi earned his B.A. in philosophy at Northern Arizona University and his Ph.D. in biology at UC Santa Barbara. He joined the UCSC faculty in 1996.
