Dr. Philip A. Sandberg

Dr. Philip A. Sandberg, beloved husband of Susan Brown-Sandberg, died from cancer at his home in Hammondsport on August 30, 2016. He was 79. He was the grandson of Swedish Immigrants Gustav Sandberg and Tekla Meck Sandberg, and the son of Gustav Adolf Sandberg, an engineering geologist, and Harriet Burquist Sandberg of Minnesota. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. Sandberg lived his formative years in the Panama Canal Zone, Bogota and Bucaramanga, Columbia, and eastern Nicaragua allowing the learning of Spanish early. Returning to the United States, he graduated from the Louisiana State University Laboratory High School, going on to earn his BS cum laude and MS degrees in Geology from LSU. Following active duty at the Fort Benning Infantry School and in Military Intelligence, he studied at University of Stockholm, earning his Filosofie doktor, in Historical Geology, in 1965 and learning Swedish. He was recently honored as a Jubilee Doctor by the University of Stockholm, in October, 2015. Dr. Sandberg taught Geology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 1965, until his retirement in 1995. During those years he served as acting Department Head and as Vice President of SEPM. He held a visiting position at Beijing University, Chengdu College of Geology, British Museum (Natural History), Imperial College in London, University of Leiden, NL, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, the University of Minnesota and Cal Tech. His research interests included microfossils and the origin and textural/chemical alteration of limestones. He received numerous post-graduate awards for teaching, best paper, and fellowships (e.g., AMOCO, Geological Society of America, Honorary Woodrow Wilson, University of Illinois, and University of Stockholm). His research interests involved resistant dinosaur bone proteins and their potential for illuminating dinosaur relationships, a project led by Dr. Peter Westbroek at the University of Leiden. Following his retirement from U of IL, he taught at Radford University, in VA as a Founding Faculty member of the New College of Global Studies. His last academic position was seven years as Dean of Natural Sciences at Dakota State University, Madison, SD. Since 2006, he has lived in Hammondsport, NY where he continued to write and publish non-geological fiction and non-fiction. He has published recently in Alimentum, Gastronomica, Greenprints, NY Times, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and Big Muddy, writing on food and culture. Other research besides writing, included languages, cooking, photography, community theater, music, and ceramics. He simply loved learning. Dr. Sandberg is survived by his wife, Susan Brown-Sandberg of 34 years, his daughter Katherine Sandberg O’Brien and her husband Robert and their two daughters Clare and Helen of CA; his son David Sandberg and his wife Kitty and their son Spencer of MO. He is also survived by his sister Anne Blackwill of MA and her family. His brother David Sandberg preceded him in death. He loved his numerous cousins and their families, both in this country and Sweden, forming a lifelong strong family tie that spanned the generations and the ocean. He also loved his family of in-law sisters and their families and many cousins by marriage that shared their holidays, birthdays, and graduations with him. His celebration of life will be at 11 AM at Royce-Chedzoy Funeral Home at 212 E. 4th St. in Watkins Glen, NY, on September 10, 2016. Friends and family may call at 10 AM before the service. Committal will be at noon, Sunday, September 11, at Wildwood Cemetery, in Williamsport, PA.