Rate My Professor Richard Lutz

Richard A. Lutz is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He received his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1971 and his Ph.D. from the University of Maine in 1975. He subsequently served as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University before joining the Rutgers faculty in 1979.

Lutz serves as Director of the Rutgers Center for Deep-Sea Ecology and Biotechnology. He previously chaired the Planning and Search Committee for the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (IMCS), established in 1987, and directed IMCS from 2011 to 2014, during which time the institute was reorganized as the Institute of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. His research focuses on the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents, the discovery of marine natural products, larval ecology of marine invertebrates, molluscan shell structure and mineralogy, and marine fisheries and aquaculture. Lutz has received the Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research, the NOGI Award from the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences, and induction as an Honored Life Member of the National Shellfisheries Association. He has contributed to numerous publications and participated in deep-sea research expeditions, including those involving the submersible Alvin.