While palaeontological research of fossils and sedimentary rocks in the Karoo sedimentary basin forms the foundation for Professor Bruce Rubidge’s work, he is equally active in bringing the fruits of his research to the wider South African public.
Rubidge obtained his BSc, honours and master’s degrees in palaeontology and geology from Stellenbosch University and his PhD degree from the University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University). He worked as a palaeontologist and later head of the palaeontology department at the National Museum in Bloemfontein before moving to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) to take up the position of director of the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontology, a position he held for 23 years. During 2013 Wits restructured its palaeosciences research institutes by combining them into a single Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI), and received a DST/NRF Centre of Excellence award. Rubidge is the director of both the ESI and the Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences.
Rubidge’s work uses the fossil record of the Karoo Supergroup to understand tetrapod evolutionary change, combining this with geological research to refine basin development models; understand biodiversity change through time; and refine Pangean wide stratigraphic correlation in order to understand the development of the continental realm during the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic eras. He played a key role in establishing first the Institute for Human Evolution, and then the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits, particularly the Palaeoscience Centre’s world-class fossil facilities.
His commitment to communicating palaeontology to the general public was apparent in his involvement with the development of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and the Kitching Fossil Exploration Centre in the Karoo town of Nieu Bethesda. In addition to the undergraduate and honours courses that he teaches, he has, in the last eight years, supervised five MSc and five PhD students.
His recent research outputs include 28 articles for journals such as Lethaia, Science and Palaeontologia Africana; as well as the co-authoring of three book chapters. He has also served on the editorial boards of a number of journals including the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, African Natural History, and Palaeontologia Africana; and acted as reviewer for Lethaia, Palaeontology, and the South African Journal of Science.
Rubidge is a fellow of the Geological Society of Southern Africa and the Royal Society of South Africa; a past president of the Palaeontological Society of Southern Africa; and a patron of the Archaeological Society.