Bruce Tiffney

Bruce H. Tiffney
Born (1949-07-03) July 3, 1949 (age 75)
Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Alma materHarvard
Boston University
Scientific career
FieldsPaleobotany
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
Doctoral advisorElso Barghoorn
Doctoral studentsKaren Chin[1]

Bruce Haynes Tiffney is an American paleobotanist, professor, and the former dean of the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[2][3] He graduated from Boston University with a degree in geology in 1971, and after earning his PhD at Harvard University in 1977, he became a professor of biology at Yale University, where he taught for nine years, and where he also worked as a curator of the D. C. Eaton Herbarium and paleontological collections at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. His research focuses on the evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms) in the fossil record. He identified the first Cretaceous flower in the 1970s in sediment from Martha's Vineyard in the USA, but was seen as an exceptional discovery.[4]

Tiffney is a fellow of the Geological Society of America,[5] and appeared on the documentary series The Future Is Wild.

He is known for his wizard's hat.[6]

  1. ^ Wright, Karen (June 1, 1996). "What the Dinosaurs Left Us". Discover Magazine.
  2. ^ Smaus, Robert (August 15, 1993). "Jurassic Plants". Los Angeles Times.
  3. ^ "Gratitude to CCS Interim Dean Bruce H. Tiffney for His Leadership | UCSB College of Creative Studies". ccs.ucsb.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-21.
  4. ^ Crair, Ben (2 January 2023). "The fossil flowers that re-wrote the history of life". The New Yorker. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
  5. ^ "Active and Current GSA Fellows". Geological Society of America. Archived from the original on 2018-09-27. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
  6. ^ "Passing the Hat". The UCSB Current. 2 June 2016. Retrieved 2022-01-21.