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GSA Member News
2013
April
- GSA Member Carrie Schweitzer of Kent State University at Stark has received Kent State’s Outstanding Research and Scholar Award. The award, sponsored by Kent State’s Division of Research, honors Schweitzer for her notable scholarly contributions that have brought acknowledgement to her field of study and to Kent State. Along with two other recipients, Schweitzer was selected based on the quality of her research and scholarship and its impact on society. Being named as a recipient of this significant award came as a welcomed surprise to Schweitzer. “I am honored and humbled by the recognition. It has been made possible by the support of my family and my colleagues at both the Stark and Kent campuses who have worked with me to make my dual professional interests in teaching and research possible,” she said. Her research in paleontology focuses on systematics and biogeography. A faculty member in Kent State Stark’s Dept. of Geology since 2000, Schweitzer is an internationally recognized expert in decapod crustaceans. She has published more than 120 technical books and papers since 1997. Speaking on behalf of the campus, Kent State Stark’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Ruth Capasso says, “Kent State University at Stark is very proud of the research conducted by Dr. Schweitzer, particularly because a scholar of her caliber is also a dedicated teacher who shares our commitment to student learning. In addition to making discoveries which advance her discipline, she regularly instructs undergraduate students at all levels, providing a true model of scientific inquiry and service.”
- GSA Member Kristen Mitchell has been named the 2013–2014 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow for the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). Mitchell currently is a research associate in the Ecohydrology Research Group at the University of Waterloo, and her research focuses on assessing the utility of remote sensing to identify plastic debris in the Great Lakes and in oceans. Mitchell is looking forward to taking science out of the laboratory and working together with policy makers. The William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellowship offers geoscientists the unique opportunity to spend 12 months in Washington, D.C. working as a staff member in the office of a member of Congress or on a congressional committee. Every year, the AGI fellow joins more than two dozen other scientists and engineers for an intensive orientation program on the legislative and executive branches, organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which also guides the placement process and provides educational and collegial programs for the fellows throughout the year.
March
- GSA Senior Fellow Farouk El-Baz, Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Research Professor in the Departments of Archaeology, Earth Sciences, and Electrical and Computer Engineering of Boston University, is the recipient of the 2013 Ireland Visiting Scholar Award. Each year the Ireland Award brings internationally renowned scholars in the arts and sciences to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to present a public lecture and participate in campus activities. Dr. Sarah Parcak, UAB associate professor of anthropology says that El-Baz “has more than 50 years of experience conducting research in geology, archaeology, remote sensing,” and ads that “I’ve been reading his papers since I was an undergraduate and wrote to him in my senior year of college—I was shocked that he wrote me back. It made an enormous impression that a scholar with such a huge international reputation would take time to encourage a young student. It speaks to his humanity—something for which he is also famous.” Dr. El-Baz, a veteran of NASA's Apollo program of lunar exploration, is a pioneer in applying space imaging in the fields of geology, geography, and archaeology. He is particularly noted for research on desert landforms and the location of groundwater resources in arid lands. Under his direction, the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing was selected in 1997 by NASA as a “Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing.”
[ learn more ] - GSA member Paul G. Marinos, Emeritus professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, has been named “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Palmes académiques”. The Order of Academic Palms is an Order of Chivalry of France for those persons with outstanding devotion and accomplishment in the areas of teaching, scholarship and research. Marinos was the 2010 Jahns Distinguished Lecturer for the jointly established lecture tour by the Association of Environmental & Engineering Geologists (AEG) and the Engineering Geology Division of GSA. He is Past President of the International Association of Engineering Geology and the Environment (IAEG) and Past President of Geological Society of Greece.
February
- GSA Student Member Kelly M. Deuerling has been named the first recipient of the American Geosciences Institute’s new Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship for women in geoscience, which is dedicated to increasing the number of women in geoscientific professions. Deuerling, a Ph.D. candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Florida, was selected for outstanding contributions to her field, as well as her commitment to several extracurricular activities and strong participation in the geoscience community. Deuerling is a highly accomplished geoscientist with a wide range of field experiences, lab skills, grants, and awards to support her research. Her current work as a Ph.D. candidate focuses on the chemical weathering of the glacial foreland in western Greenland, using tracers of subglacial hydrologic systems and oceanic fluxes of radiogenic isotopes. The timeliness of her research, as well as its broad appeal and potential impacts on the greater geoscience community, helped to distinguish Deuerling as a promising young scientist within the geoscience profession.
[ learn more ] - GSA Fellow Jonathan G. Price has been awarded The Mining and Metallurgical Society of America’s (MMSA) 2013 Gold Medal for his significant contributions to the science of economic geology in the minerals industry, academia, and government. The citation notes that Price’s “dedication to public outreach has improved our understanding and appreciation of the vital role played by mining and minerals in Nevada and the United States.” Price’s service to the mining industry through leadership positions in professional societies is extensive. His service to the SME, SEG, Geological Society of Nevada, MMSA, GSA, and other professional societies is unparalleled. Price served as a mentor to many Mackay School of Mines students who went on to make their own contributions as employees of the mining industry in many parts of the world. The citation states, “This service to the industry should not be undervalued, as it will live on long after we are gone.”
[ learn more ]
January
- GSA Senior Fellows John J. Amoruso, Richard S. Bishop, Robert L. Folk, Miles O. Hayes, and George Devries Klein have been named the Houston Geological Society’s (HGS) 2013 “Legends of Sedimentology.” Amoruso is a past president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the inaugural recipient of AAPG’s Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award. Bishop, an exploration geologist, is also a past AAPG president. Folk is professor emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin and GSA’s 2000 Penrose Medalist. Hayes is a coastal geomorphologist and co-author of the book A Coast for All Seasons. Klein is both president of SED-STRAT Geoscience Consultants, Inc. in Katy, Texas, USA, and professor emeritus of geology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
[ learn more ] - GSA Senior Fellow J. William Schopf, Distinguished Professor of Paleobiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the recipient of the National Academies of Science Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences, presented this year with the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal. Schopf is being honored for his studies of the microscopic fossils that represent the earliest forms of life on Earth and for his generous and inspirational leadership of large, collaborative research groups. These "Precambrian Paleobiology Research Groups" brought together scientists from multiple scientific disciplines and focused their efforts to yield new ideas and information. Their work has stimulated countless further studies of the earliest history of life on Earth. The Walcott Medal is presented every five years with a US$10,000 prize and recognizes contributions to research on Cambrian or Precambrian life. Schopf will be honored along with other NAS award recipients in a ceremony on Sunday, April 28, during the Academy's 150th annual meeting.
[ learn more ]
2012
October
- GSA member Louis L. Jacobs has been presented with the 2012 Science Teachers Association of Texas Skoog Cup for leadership in science education, advocacy for quality K–12 science education, contributions to professional science organizations, and development of effective programs for pre-service and in-service teachers of science. Jacobs is a professor in Southern Methodist University's (SMU) Roy M. Huffington Dept. of Earth Sciences and president of SMU's Institute for the Study of Earth and Man. The Skoog Cup is named for the first award recipient, Dr. Gerald Skoog, professor emeritus, Texas Tech University.
July
- GSA Fellow Kirk Johnson, chief curator and vice president of research and collections at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science has been named Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
[ learn more ]
June
- GSA Fellow Peter Buseck of Arizona State University has had the considerable honor of having a mineral named after him. The mineral, buseckite, was discovered in a meteorite found near the village of Zakłodzie, Poland, by Chi Ma, John R. Beckett, and George R. Rossman (American Mineralogist, Volume 97, pages 1226–1233).
[ learn more | Read the Ma et al. abstract about the mineral's discovery ]
May
- GSA member Allison Macfarlane, professor of environmental science and policy at George Mason University, has been appointed by President Obama to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
[ learn more ] - GSA member Tyrone Rooney of Michigan State University has been has been selected as a distinguished lecturer for the National Science Foundation's GeoPRISMS program. He will speak on the processes associated with rift initiation and evolution centering on his experience with the East African Rift system.
[ learn more about Rooney's research | learn more about GeoPRISMS ] - GSA student member Brendan Paddack, an undergrad at Indiana State University, earned the award for best undergraduate student poster at the Crossroads Geological Conference in Terre Haute, Indiana USA. He will present his paper "Benthic Foraminifera Living along the California Margin: A Transect Across the Oxygen Minimum Zone," at the GSA annual meeting this fall.
[ learn more ] - The career of GSA Fellow and GSA Bulletin editor Hope Jahren is highlighted in a 7 May Highly Allochthonous blog post "Hope Jahren, isotope detective."
April
- GSA Fellow Dennis Kent, a leading expert in the history of Earth's magnetic field, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Other members of the 2012 class include U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, playwright Neil Simon, and Hollywood director Clint Eastwood.
[ learn more ] - GSA Member Michael Mann has been awarded the European Geosciences Union's 2012 Oeschger Medal "for his significant contributions to understanding decadal–centennial scale climate change over the last two millennia and for pioneering techniques to synthesize patterns and northern hemispheric time series of past climate using proxy data reconstructions."
[ learn more ] - GSA Members Susan L. Brantley, Distinguished Professor of Geosciences in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Penn State, and Patricia Dove, C.P. Miles Professor of Science at Virginia Tech, have been elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
[ learn more ] - GSA Fellow Sean C. Solomon, "a leading geophysicist whose research has combined studies of the deep earth with missions to the moon and the solar system’s inner planets," has been appointed as director of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
[ learn more ] - GSA Fellow David R. Lageson of Montana State University (MSU) is a climber on the current North Face/National Geographic/MSU Mount Everest expedition and will take on the mountain's Southeast Ridge.
[ learn more | Nat Geo site ]
February
- Congratulate your fellow GSA members who were nominated as AAAS and AGU Fellows in 2011.