Gillings School remembers environmental scientist James T. Staley
August 30, 2024
Read the full obituary from the Seattle Times.
Dr. James T. Staley
James Trotter Staley, PhD, former assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, died on August 22, 2024, at the age of 86. Staley was born in Brookings, South Dakota, on March 14, 1938, the youngest of three children, to Newton and Isabelle Staley.
His father encouraged a lifelong interest in science and in finding solutions by often giving him challenging puzzles, including a complex architectural problem that the engineers at his father’s job at the Bureau of Reclamation struggled with that Staley was able to solve. His interest in finding solutions continued throughout his life with the testing of novel hypotheses.
Staley met his sweetheart, Sonja Jeanne Erickson, in 8th grade in Huron, S.D. At the completion of his senior year at Huron High School, he was selected as one of 48 Explorer Scouts, one from each state, to attend an International Boy Scout Jamboree in Japan during the summer of 1956 via Seattle. This was the start of Staley’s international travel adventures and of his love of Seattle.
Due to his broad interests, Staley changed college majors several times but decided to pursue a career in science when the U.S. began to place more emphasis on science and technology after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. During his senior year of college, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota, where he graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in math.
Staley wanted an advanced degree because it provided greater opportunity to do research. He decided to pursue a degree in microbiology because of how much he enjoyed Professor Robert Pengra’s course at South Dakota State College. The Ohio State University gave Jim a strong background in traditional bacteriology.
His master’s research project provided him with the opportunity to work in the Arctic and Antarctica. At that time, the United States Geological Survey was preparing maps of the inland mountainous terrain near Cape Hallett. Later, in the 1980s, Jim discovered that they named glaciers and mountains for the nearby Hallett scientists, including his namesake 2,560-meter-high Mount Staley!
Staley completed his doctoral work at the University of California, Davis in 1967. While at Davis, he was moved to propose to Sonja the night John F. Kennedy was assassinated (November 22, 1963) and they married that December. The couple had a son, Greg, in 1964, and a daughter, Wendy, in 1966. In 1968, Jim isolated, characterized and named two new genera, Prosthecomicrobium and Ancalomicrobium (Staley 1968 J Bact 95:1921). Staley coined the term ‘prostheca, -ae’ meaning ‘appendage’ in Greek as a general term for the cellular appendages of bacteria. Two Prosthecomicrobium species were named (Staley 1968 J Bact 95:1921).
The family moved to Michigan State University in 1967 – 1969, where Staley taught the first microbial ecology course at the Gull Lake Biological Station in Hickory Corners. While there he studied the in-situ growth of algae while wearing waders and sitting on a submerged stool in a pond.
In 1969, Staley became assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the then-UNC School of Public Health at UNC-Chapel Hill.
In 1971, Staley became a professor of microbiology at The University of Washington. Staley was interested in microbial evolution and diversity and considered his life’s work “Seeking Truth in the Microbial Cosmos.” As a scientist he had a thrilling career and rejoiced in the opportunity to search for and occasionally discover some scientific truths that are part of the complex tapestry of nature.
He wrote and published textbooks (Microbial Life and Microbiology Dynamics & Diversity). And served as the Founding Director of the UW Astrobiology Program from 1998-2005. He became a Bergey’s Manual Trustee in 1976, Chair of Bergey’s Trust in 2000, and retired from the Trust at the mandatory age of 70 in 2008, the same year he received the Bergey Medal. During his chairmanship, he initiated and served as President of Bergey’s International Society for Microbial Systematics (BISMiS) from 2009 – May 2011. Staley was a member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for more than 50 years and received the U.S. Federation of Culture Collections J. Roger Porter Award from ASM in 2008.
Staley’s research was varied: the impact of the Mt. St. Helens eruption on blast zone lakes, desert varnish and manganese oxidation, marine microbiology, whale microbiology and chitin degradation, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) degradation, sea ice microbiology, low temperature growth and psychrophile genomics, Black Sea studies, Phylogenomic Species Concept and Universal Species Concept, biogeography of sea ice bacteria, co-speciation of Simonsiellia, and the Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia, Chlamydia (PVC) Superphylum. He took sabbatical leaves in Australia, Germany and Hawaii.
At age 79, Jim proposed the Nuclear Compartment Commonality (NuCom) hypothesis that posits that both the bacteria and eukarya evolved from nucleated ancestors. According to NuCom, the eukarya have always been nucleated, and the bacteria evolved from nucleated ancestors of the planctomycetes-verrucomicrobium-chlamydia (PVC) superphylum. Common bacteria, such as E. coli, are descended from the PVC superphylum by enucleation – a process whereby the nuclear compartment was eliminated to enable the more rapid evolution of the common bacteria to fit into their novel evolving niches.
Staley stated: “…it is not how luminaries evaluate one based on their opinions and information, but it is the contributions one makes that are important. I believe one must be kind but stand up for oneself, be open-minded, develop a thick skin, contribute novel findings, suggest recommendations for improvement and have the humility to admit when you are wrong.”
A former grad student said, “…isolating and culturing new microbes … is a talent that very few people have and [Jim] was a wizard.”
For more information on Staley’s career, see pages 19-32 and pages 10-21 of several issues of the Bulletin of BISMiS.
Staley’s desk piled with papers was the stuff of legends – rumor has it the fire marshal cited him one time for it as a hazard. He traveled to every continent and more than sixty countries and enjoyed hosting international friends at home. One of his favorite songs was Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” He also loved indigenous art including Native American, Indonesian and Polynesian art; Kona Hawaii; apple fritters; lemon meringue pie; and his subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. When they were boys, he and brother Bob froze the largest hailstone they could find during a Huron, SD winter storm.
Staley was preceded in death by his wife Sonja; son Greg; grandson Max, granddaughter Melanie; and sister Nancy. He is survived by his daughter Wendy; grandson Jack; brother Bob (Kathie); sisters-in-law Nancy and Jan (Dick); as well as nieces, nephews and cousins.
In lieu of flowers, donations in his name may be made to the National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias c/o IU Foundation – Medicine (Acct # 0380009784, Genetics Studies Research), PO Box 6460, Indianapolis, IN 46206-6460.
A memorial bench in Jim’s honor has been placed on the Innis Arden Clubhouse grounds near Sonja’s and Greg’s. This winter, Staley’s ashes will join Sonja’s in the Puget Sound off of the Edmonds-Kingston ferry route.
Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.
