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JOHN E. FOSS was born on 30 May 1932 in Whitehall, WI. He received his B.S. degree in agricultural education
from the Univ. of Wisconsin-River Falls in 1957. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Univ. of Minnesota in
1959 and 1965.
He served on the faculty at the Univ. of Wisconsin-River Falls for a few years in the early 1960's teaching soils and geology. In 1966 he joined the faculty at the Univ. of Maryland in the Dep. of Agronomy, where he served for the next 15 years. While at UMD, he taught courses in introductory soil science and soil and water conservation and conducted research in soil genesis, during which time he taught soil science to a great many of our MAPSS members, and he helped mentor a number of disreputable graduate students (Carl Robinette, Dan Wagner, Mary Wagner, Cliff Stein, Bill McMahon, George Demas, Phil Snow, Marty Rabenhorst). Also during his time at Maryland, he was very active in the National Cooperative Soil Survey Program and contributed significantly toward the soil survey effort in Maryland. It was also while he was at UMD, that Dr. Foss initiated a research program in soil archaeology collaborating with colleagues in departments of Archeology and Geology at Catholic University and UMD. Ever since those days, he has been involved in countless archeological efforts around this country as well as in Central America, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. John Foss basically pioneered and helped forge the collaborative efforts between the soil science and archeology communities, and has continued to make significant contributions in this arena. In 1981, Dr. Foss left UMD to become the head of the Dept. of Soil Science at North Dakota State Univ. and then in 1985 he became department head at the University of Tenn. at Knoxville. Although he carried weighty administrative responsibilities, he continued his research activities in soil archaeology. Dr. Foss has published a great many scientific papers. He has served the larger soil science community as the chair of division S-5 (Pedology) of SSSA, he has served on the editorial board of the journal Soil Science, and was the president of the American Society of Agronomy. I think one of his greatest honors, however, must be that he was a charter member of MAPSS, and has retained active membership throughout the history of MAPSS to the present day.
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