Background
Loomis was born November 22, 1873, in Brooklyn, New York, to Julie R. Loomis (née Brewster) and Nathaniel H. Brewster, a businessman who ran produce warehouses in New York City. In March 1877 his father died of rabies contracted from a dog bite.
Education
The family later moved to Rochester, New York, where he attended Rochester Free Academy and then Canandaigua Academy, which was then a private school for boys.
Career
Educated at Amherst College and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, he spent his entire professional career at Amherst. His specialty was vertebrate paleontology. Many fossils he uncovered during his extensive field work are still exhibited at Amherst"s Beneski Museum of Natural History.
He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and president of the Paleontological Society.
Loomis"s interest in paleontology dates from this period, when we spent his spare time collecting invertebrate fossils. In 1892 Loomis entered Amherst College, where he joined Phi Delta Theta.
After graduating in 1896 he remained at Amherst for a year as a research assistant in biology. In the fall of 1897 he entered the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to study under Karl Alfred von Zittel.
He earned his Doctor of Philosophy from Ludwig Maximilian University in 1899.
After earning his Doctor of Philosophy Loomis returned to Amherst, where he remained on the faculty until his death. He was first an Instructor in the Department of Biology. He was named Associate Professor of Biology in 1903, Professor of Comparative Anatomy in 1908, and Professor of Geology in 1917.
He also served as Vice President of the College and held this office at the time of his death.
Loomis was chiefly a vertebrate paleontologist, and most of his published research is in this area. He was highly active in field work.
Most notably, a 1911 expedition to Patagonia funded by Loomis"s Amherst Class of 1896 yielded several remarkable fossils of the extinct mammal Pyrotherium. He also explored areas of the Rocky Mountains, Florida and Maine, returning to Amherst with fossils of vertebrates including Eohippus, mastodons, and mammoths.
These joined the collection of Amherst"s natural history museum, known today as the Beneski Museum of Natural History.
He was also active in the Paleontological Society, serving as its President in 1920. The Springfield Science Museum in Springfield, Master of Arts features an exhibit which includes a bone initially collected in New Mexico in 1924 during one of 17 expeditions led by Loomis. The exhibit includes photographs of Loomis on one of his expeditions.
He was buried a little more than a week later at Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Membership
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.