Richard Aldridge

Richard John Aldridge (1945 – 4 February 2014) was a British palaeontologist who was the Bennett Professor of geology at the University of Leicester.
Aldridge's career began at Southampton University before moving to a temporary lectureship at University College London and then to Nottingham University where he remained until 1989 when, during the Oxburgh Review of Earth Sciences, he moved to his current institution, the University of Leicester, where he served two terms as Head of Department. Aldridge's research has been focused primarily on the conodont biostratigraphyand palaeobiology and one of his seminal contributions has been to uncover the vertebrate nature of the long-enigmatic conodont animal, principally in collaboration with Derek Briggs and Euan Clarkson. This was achieved through careful analysis of skeletal remains, but also through analysis of rare soft tissue remains of conodonts. This led naturally to Aldridge's current research focus which is fossil Lagerstätten. Aldridge was awarded the Pander Medal of the Pander society in 2006. He was President of the Palaeontological Association and of the British Micropalaeontological Society (1995-1998).