Robert James Menzies (1923-1976) was a carcinologist and oceanographer who began his career as a member of an expedition to Baja California, Mexico, under the auspices of the San Diego Society of Natural History in 1941. In 1943 Menzies enrolled in the United States Navy Officer Training program at Arizona State College and then transferred in the same program to College of the Pacific where he received the A.B. in 1945. He remained with the program in 1945 as a student in the Medical College of the University of Nebraska (Omaha). He studied Crustacea with the Allen Hancock Foundation in 1946, and from 1947-1949 with the Pacific Marine Station of the College of the Pacific where he received the A.M. degree in 1948. He returned to the Hancock Foundation and he received his Ph.D. in 1951. Menzies was associated with the University of California, Davis (1951-1952), the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (1953-1955), and the Biology Program at Lamont Geological Observatory of Columbia University (1955-1960). In 1961 he became the director of the Estacion Cientifico de Investigaciones Marinas de Margarita of the Lasalle Foundation in Caracas, Venezuela. He returned to the University of Southern California during 1961-1962 and joined the faculty of Duke University in 1962 as a professor of Zoology and director of the Oceanography Program. In 1968 he became professor of Oceanography at Florida State University, where he remained until his death. Menzies was an active oceanographer who participated or led numerous oceanographic cruises all over the world, and is considered to be an expert on Isopoda.
Smithsonian Institution Archives Field Book Project: Person : Description : rid_23_pid_EACP22
