Citation by Jen O’Keefe
I am delighted to introduce Anne Raymond as this year’s Cady Award Winner. Mentor, friend, colleague, Anne is a driving force in advancing coal paleobotany. While she has published many insightful articles, it is not through her publications or even mentorship that she has exerted the greatest influence. Rather, she questions everything, and digs deep into the minutia of modern ecology, taphonomy, geochemical systems, and depositional environments to craft very thorough, data-driven thought arguments for and against one idea after another, ranging from the application of root:shoot ratios in peats to medullosan life habits to timing of coal-ball carbonate deposition to the importance of detritivores in peat preservation.
Anne honed her questioning nature under Tom Schopf at Chicago and her love of Paleozoic plants with Tom Phillips at Champaign-Urbana before joining Texas A&M in 1983, where she quickly established herself both as a scientist and a highly valued mentor. Her students agree that even casual conversations with Anne resulted in vast improvements in our work, whether through astute insights or encouragement to pause and focus on self-care.
As a colleague, a conversation with Anne can be like fireworks, with one idea after another exploding until the grand finale snaps everything into focus. This has, at times, led to rather heated debate and has ruffled more than a few feathers. It has also caused many of us to step back and re-examine our work, publishing well-constructed studies to support or refute exactly what she noted. Anne has spent her career pointing out holes in coal paleobotany to students and colleagues, producing a long line of multi-faceted scientists and important collaborations.
It is in this sense that Anne embodies the very best of the legacy of Gilbert H. Cady: a true gentlewoman scientist who is deeply concerned for all around her, both personally and professionally. Academic battles engaged, lost or won, or careful revisions to a manuscript she meticulously reviewed earn a brilliant grin of approval. She is among a small group of women who have truly risen to Cady’s challenge to “occupy an important status in coal science.”