Biography
 Richard Raymond Doell, 1971 Vetlesen Prize Award Dinner |
(1923-2008)
Richard Rayman Doell, a geologist who made critical contributions to the theory of plate tectonics, was born June 28, 1923, in Oakland, California, the son of Raymond A. and Mable F. Doell.
He was a student at the University of California (Los Angeles) from 1940 to 1943. After the war Doell returned to the University of California (Berkeley) where he earned his A.B. degree in geology in 1952, and his Ph.D. in 1955.
Dr. Doell was a lecturer in geophysics at the University of Toronto in 1955-56, and an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1956 to 1958. In 1958 he joined the U.S. Geological Survey as a research geophysicist in Menlo Park, California, and in 1967 became Chief of the USGS Branch of Theoretical Geophysics.
Dr. Doell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1969.