Pioneering anthropologist George Morren, who experimented with remote sensing in the South Pacific, lost his battle with cancer Sept. 29th.

Dr. Morren was among the first to use remote sensing satellite technology for field research funded by the National Science Foundation in 1991-1994. Before GPS devices were available to consumers, he used their forerunners to investigate human and environmental change in Papua New Guinea.

Born on West Brighton, Staten Island in 1939, George Edward Bradshaw Morren Jr. graduated from Columbia University in 1960. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1960 to 1963, then returned to Columbia where he finished his PhD in 1974. He conducted research on the Miyanmin tribe in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea which was published in a monograph entitled The Miyanmin: Human Ecology of a Papua New Guinea Society. (Iowa State University Press).

His colleagues said they admired his ability to sort out the relevance of the new technology emerging in the 1980s. "At a time when GPS hardware and software were crude and imprecise, George had to find the least bulky, most accurate and most reasonably priced to take to Papua New Guinea," recalls Professor Emeritus Baruch Boxer of Rutgers, now a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Department of Environmental Engineering. "He needed precise location coordinates for vegetation surveys on a three meter square grid. I couldn't imagine him carrying the assortment of equipment he had assembled. But he did and regaled me upon return on how well the assemblage worked. "

Dr. Morren was one of the first faculty members hired at Rutgers University to develop a program in Human Ecology in 1973 and his teaching and leadership as department chair and curriculum coordinator were instrumental in the success of this program, said Bonnie McCay, Board of Governors Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers.

He contributed to the new academic fields of ecological anthropology and human ecology through this work, through a textbook Ecology, Energetics, and Human Variability, (co-authored with M. Little) and in his development of theoretical perspectives and case studies for understanding social responses to environmental problems.

Later he put theory into practice. After teaching a course at Rutgers' Cook College on Social Responses to Environmental Problems, he became the Mayor of Rocky Hill, New Jersey. In that new role saved the town from a 12-pump truck fueling station on the main street. Dr. Morren pointed out to the Department of Environmental Protection that the proposed site near the corner of Routes 518 and 206 was dangerously close to the town's water supply. Local activists urged residents to boycott Wawa, the convenience store adjacent to the site, because of their plans to expand. Signs on lawns in this historic district shouted: "Oil and Water Don't Mix." In 2006 Dr. Morren testified in Trenton and triumphed to the relief of Rocky Hill and Montgomery Township residents alike.

"The flags are flying at half mast at Borough Hall, the Firehouse and Panacero Park in his honor," said Mayor Ed Zimmerman. "George played a big role in Rocky Hill and took over as mayor at a politically heated time and calmed things down so there was a smooth transition when I came in."

Survivors include his wife Janet Gardner, filmmaker and journalist, his son Dr. Karl Debreczeny, a curator at the Rubin Museum in New York, and his brother Dr. Christopher Morren, who practices internal medicine in Stonington, Connecticut.

A Memorial service will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 18th at 6 pm at Rutgers University's Cook Campus Center, 59 Biel Road, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.

A scholarship in memory of George E. B. Morren Jr. is being set up at Rutgers University. Contributions can be directed to The Rutgers Foundation, c/o Development Office, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, 88 Lipman Drive, New Brunswick, NJ 08901.