Award History


Frank Shipley Collins Awardees

In 1996, the Frank Shipley Collins award for meritorious service to the Northeast Algal Society, and phycology in general, was inaugurated with the recognition of Edwin Boger of Worcester State College. The award was initiated by the Executive Committee to honor professional phycologists who had supported NEAS above and beyond the call of duty.

This award commemorates Frank S. Collins (1848-1920), by vocation an accountant for the Boston Rubber Shoe Company in Malden, Massachusetts, and by avocation, an ardent collector and naturalist of freshwater and marine algae. Throughout his long phycological career, Collins wrote several books and published over a hundred papers on both marine and freshwater algae primarily from New England, but also from Pacific North America, the Caribbean, the Bahamas and Bermuda.

Another great legacy of Collins was his innumerable specimens left in a wide range of herbaria in North American and Europe, including his monumental contribution to the most extensive published exsiccata of North American algal species in Phycotheca Boreali-Americana (Collins, Holden and Setchell, 1895-1919). The preparation of this exsiccata near the turn of the 20th century, 80 sets of 51 fascicles of mostly 50 specimens each was a labor of love that fell primarily to Collins himself. All of these accomplishments were completed in the lifetime of a man with only a high school diploma and a daytime accounting job, "above and beyond the call of duty" for any naturalist of his time.

2019
Brian Wysor
Roger William University

2018
Chris Neefus
University of New Hampshire

2017
Peter Siver
Connecticut College

2016
Ed Bonneau
Ph.D., University of Connecticut

2015
Louise Lewis
University of Connecticut

2014
Morgan Vis
 
Ohio University

2013
Not awarded

2012
John Wehr

Fordham University

2011
Susan Brawley

University of Maine

2010
Greg Boyer

SUNY Syracuse

2009
Peter Bradley

Worcester State College

2008
Glen Thursby

US Environmental Protection Agency, RI

2007
Gary Saunders

University of New Brunswick

2006
Curt Pueschel

SUNY, Binghampton

2005
Larry Liddle

University of Long Island

2004
Not Awareded

2003
Craig Schneider

Trinity College

2002
Frank Trainor

University of Connecticut

2001
Bob Wilce

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

2000
Jim Sears

University of Massachusetts, N. Dartmouth

1999
Bea Robinson

Le Moyne College

1998
Bill Johansen

Clark University

1997
Barry Colt

Southeastern Massachusetts University

1996
Ed Boger

Worcester State College