J.A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research

Dr. Rajiv Nigam (Former Chief Scientist, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India), has been selected as 2022 recipient of J.A. Cushman Award for Excellence in Foraminiferal Research.
Dr. Rajiv Nigam is the first Indian Citizen who is selected for this lifetime achievement award.
This award, the highest honor the Cushman Foundation, recognizes Dr. Nigam's outstanding lifetime contributions to the field of foraminifera research.
The award will be presented at the Cushman Reception at the 2022 Geological Society of America meeting in Denver, Colorado, USA, from October 9-12-2022.

His main findings are pollution monitoring through relative sensitivity of the benthic foraminifera; development of novel technique to decipher net sediment transport direction by comparisons of living and dead benthic foraminifera; postulating dimorphism as proxy for paleoclimatic reconstructions; development of model for the paleodepth determination in the Arabian Sea and sea level curve for the Holocene; morphogroups of benthic foraminifera as a new tool for paleomonsoonal reconstruction and discovery of 77 years cyclicity in average monsoonal rainfall which is modulated by Gleissberg solar cycle.
Dr. Nigam has worked extensively for application of Foraminifera in the field of Marine Archaeology [e.g. settling controversy of dockyard at Lothal (The oldest dockyard ever discovered in the world); explanation of Neolithic human settlements in Gulf of Cambay [through knowledge of sea level fluctuations] and reporting the thick wall [~18 m] at Dholavira as oldest record of tsunami protection measures in India.

The Joseph A. Cushman Award was established in 1979 by USA based Cushman foundation for foraminiferal Research to honor researchers who have made outstanding contributions in the field of foraminiferology.