August 29, 2016
Dear Members of our Campus Community:
I am saddened to share with you the news that Professor Emeritus John Robert Haller passed away on August 17 at his Goleta home with his beloved wife, Dr. Nancy Vivrette, at his side.
Professor Haller joined our faculty in 1957 after obtaining his Ph.D. from UCLA. He devoted nearly four decades to UC Santa Barbara as a Professor of Botany; his undergraduate Botany 103 course, “Plants of California,” was described by a former student as a “one-of-a-kind” course that opened the eyes of countless students “to both beauty and science.” His research and teaching came to life through his vivid and powerful photographic studies of plants and landscapes. Professor Haller’s passion for field biology inspired more than a generation of botanists and took him and Nancy throughout California, as well as north to Canada, east to North Dakota, and south to Mexico and Guatemala, in search of ancestral populations of pines.
His pioneering research resulted in essential collections and baseline data spanning nearly 70 years in a changing world. We are honored and fortunate to house over 5,000 specimens from 300 localities in the John Robert Haller Pine Collection at our Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER). Professor Haller also collaborated on one of the first vegetation classification systems in California, and was instrumental in helping to establish the UC Natural Reserve System, a reflection of his devotion to preservation, education, research, and outreach.
Dr. Haller continued to be closely engaged with our campus and community even after his retirement in 1994. He served as a botanist at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, where he and Nancy taught classes and led field trips, and where his collaboration with Dr. Robert Muller led to the publication of their co-authored book Trees of Santa Barbara. In 2001, Bob was honored as a Local Hero by the Santa Barbara Independent.
I was honored to have the opportunity to visit with Nancy on August 19, and to convey our condolences as well as our heartfelt appreciation for Professor Haller’s tremendous contributions to our university and world community. She wished to share with our community that a celebration of Bob’s life will be scheduled in the coming weeks at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and that contributions in his memory to honor his academic work and research on pines may be made to CCBER here on campus, and contributions to honor his photographic collections, multimedia presentations, and field trip educational activities may be made to the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.
Professor Haller will be dearly missed by our UC Santa Barbara family, and by his family, friends, and colleagues around the world. Our campus flag will be lowered in his honor tomorrow, Tuesday, August 30.
Sincerely,
Henry T. Yang
Chancellor