Aquatic Organic Geochemistry

John Hedges was a man of many talents. Generous with young scientists, uncompromising in his drive to understand organic processes in aquatic environments, stubborn yet surprisingly sentimental. John was born and raised on a pig farm in Radnor Ohio. He never lost his love for the slop, preferring perhaps to study it in the confines of a lab rather than in a pigs trough. John received his BS from Capitol University in Columbus Ohio and then headed to the University of Texas, Marine Sciences Institute at Port Aransas, where he received his PhD under Pat Parker. His PhD research (1975) on the lignin geochemsitry of the Gulf of Mexico remains a seminar piece of marine organic geochemistry. John was a post-doctoral fellow at the Carnegie Geophysical laboratory in Washington DC under the guidance of Tom Hoering. In 1976 he joined the faculty at the University of Washington in Seattle

In the year 2000, John was honored with the highest distiction his peers could bestow- the Alfred Treibs Medallion. John had vision beyond organic geochemistry of lignin, and worked on a variety of research projects and organic compounds throughtout his career. He published over 70 articles, some of which are still available here on this website.John was a loving husband and a doting father. He was an avid collector of beer cans and other memorabilia, and he was the quintessential friend. Everyone who interacted with John was shocked by the sudden loss of our friend and mentor on July 26th, 2002. John was only 56 years old. When we lost John we lost a piece of ourselves.