Category: Earth, Ocean and Environment
In Memoriam: Thomas Church
February 24, 2021 Written by CEOE Staff
Thomas M. (Tom) Church passed on February, 11, 2021 due to complications from COVID-19. He is survived by his wife Karen, eldest daughter Dorothy (Daisy), son Thomas Edward (Ted), and youngest daughter Aimee.
Church was many things in his superb professional career as a chemical oceanographer at the University of Delaware. Among these were academician, mentor, spokesman, holistic thinker, collaborator, and visionary to name a few. Church’s work was well received throughout his career, and he was driving chemical research at the air-sea interface for more than 40 years. He contributed to writing the atmospheric input section of the GEOTRACES Science Plan and developed and tested the methods used to collect trace element-clean aerosol and rainfall samples on cruises since 2002.
Church published over 160 papers in prestigious journals that include Science and Nature.
At Church’s retirement party from the University of Delaware on May 19, 2014, George Luther, the Maxwell P. and Mildred H. Harrington Professor of Marine Studies, paid tribute to Church saying, “Tom is much more than the excellent content, which is in these papers. Throughout his entire career, Tom has taken a rigorous academic approach to both research and education. As Tom mentored his students and collaborators, he always challenged them to do their best. At the same time, he showed how generous he is. On a personal as well as professional note, it was Tom’s encouragement that led me to the University of Delaware. I can easily say that Tom’s mentorship has been one of the most important aspects of my professional career.”
A tribute posted by the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), at which Church first worked in the 1970s when it was known as the Bermuda Biological Station for Research and at which he served as a Trustee since 2001, noted that Church was instrumental in the early 1980s in the research of atmospheric transport of pollutants over the Western Atlantic and Bermuda. Working alongside atmospheric scientist Jim Galloway and others, he helped launch WATOX (the Western Atlantic Ocean eXperiment), which coordinated air and sea observations to investigate sources of sulfur in the marine atmosphere as part of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study.
Through his work at the University of Delaware, he was active in promoting collaborations with BIOS and was thrilled when a 2019 UD Winter Session was offered at BIOS and when a collaboration with BIOS’s coral reef and underwater robotics research came to fruition.