Richard Kerr (science journalist)
Richard A. Kerr, also known as Dick Kerr, is a science journalist and former staff writer for "Science." Kerr received his BA in chemistry from the College of Wooster in 1968. After working for a year as a research chemist in the Ocean Sciences Division of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, he spent three years as an officer on the fleet oiler USS "Ponchatoula" during the Vietnam War. After leaving the Navy, Kerr earned his PhD in oceanography from the University of Rhode Island, where he also "surreptitiously" took classes in magazine writing and  news reporting. In 1977, a week after defending his dissertation, he accepted a job as a geophysics writer for "Science"; he was soon promoted to senior writer, and began covering Earth and planetary sciences. Kerr was elected as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 1995.