Rate My Professor Richard Lupia

Richard Lupia holds the Frank and Henrietta Schultz Chair and serves as Associate Professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of Oklahoma. He is also Associate Director and Head Curator of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Botany and Microbiology. Lupia earned a B.A. in Biology with a minor in Geology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, an M.S. in 1994, and a Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of Chicago. His doctoral dissertation, titled “Palynological Record of the Cretaceous Angiosperm Radiation: Diversity, Abundance and Morphological Patterns,” was completed under Dr. Peter R. Crane. From 1997 to 1999, he conducted postdoctoral research in Paleobotany at the Field Museum in Chicago, serving as adjunct interim curator. In 1999, he joined the University of Oklahoma as Assistant Professor in the School of Geology and Geophysics and Assistant Curator of Paleobotany and Micropaleontology at the Sam Noble Museum, advancing to Associate Professor and Associate Curator in 2006.

Lupia's research centers on paleobotany, palynology, and paleoecology. His primary focus examines vegetational changes during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age, from the latest Pennsylvanian through the Early Permian in Oklahoma and Kansas, using palynology of core and outcrop samples to document shifts from humid- to arid-adapted vegetation. Additional projects include the diversification of heterosporous ferns amid Cretaceous angiosperm expansion, mesofossil floras from the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains analyzed via scanning electron microscopy for morphological evolution and insect-plant interactions, and taxonomy and anatomy of petrified wood floras from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation in Oklahoma, Utah, and Montana to infer paleoecology and climate. He teaches courses such as History of Earth and Life, The Dynamic Earth, and Paleobotany. Key publications include "Mid-Cretaceous megaspore floras from Maryland, USA" (Journal of Paleontology, 2015), "Late Pennsylvanian–Early Permian vegetational transition in Oklahoma: Palynological record" (International Journal of Coal Geology, 2013), "Late Santonian megaspore floras from the Gulf Coastal Plain (Georgia, USA)" (Journal of Paleontology, 2011), and "Ferns Diversified in the Shadow of Angiosperms" (Nature, 2004).