Royal D. Suttkus

[2] After his military duty, Suttkus returned to higher education, as a graduate student at Cornell University under academic advisor Edward Raney.

Also, early in his academic career, Suttkus began a variety of activities as a consultant, mostly on environmental and zoological surveys.

This collaboration aided in Suttkus's efforts in scientific naming and taxonomy as he built the ichthyology collection.

[3] Suttkus officially retired from his professorship at Tulane University in 1990, although he continued academic pursuits with emeritus status.

[2] In mid-1947 Suttkus met Elizabeth Robinson while he was working a summer job with the New York Fish and Game Commission.

Following the devastation, what remained of his ichthyology research materials in his home were donated to the Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection.

In particular, the university hired as faculty members herpetologist Fred R. Cagle, botanist Joseph A. Ewan, invertebrate zoologist George H. Penn, and Royal D. Suttkus.

From the beginning of his tenure as a faculty member at Tulane University, Suttkus concentrated on building an ichthyology collection that could be used for research purposes.

[6] The Royal D. Suttkus Fish Collection began as the Tulane University Museum of Natural History.

As Suttkus built the collection, by 1968 with approximately 2 million specimens, it outgrew its original location on the main campus of the university.

At that time it relocated to the parcel of land that Tulane University acquired from the United States Navy, and it had been briefly used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The collection also completed digitization of its holdings in order to facilitate research, in an effort funded by the National Science Foundation.