Richard K. Bambach is professor emeritus of paleontology at Virginia Tech and now does research at the Botanical Museum at Harvard University. His research interests include paleoecology, large-scale macroevolutionary patterns, paleogeography and paleobiogeography, and Paleoezoic stratigraphy in the Appalachians. In 2003 he received the Paleontological Society Medal and in 1998 he was awarded the Raymond C. Moore Medal for excellence in paleontology from the Society for Sedimentary Geology.