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(added October 2009)
Amy Lasseigne and Max Bezada win 2009 SEG Challenge Bowl
Rice University graduate students Amy Lasseigne and Max Bezada were this year's winners of the Society of Society of Geophysicists annual Challenge Bowl.
The SEG Challenge Bowl is an international contest testing students' breadth and depth of knowledge about the field of geoscience. The quiz show format features intense comptetition as the contestants attempt to buzz in first with the answers to challenging geoscience questions.
The team from Rice's Department of Earth Science won the regional competition earlier this year and sealed the victory over the other worldwide teams at the recent SEG Conference here in Houston this month. Congratulations to Amy and Max!
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(added October 2009)
2009-2010 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow Selected
GSA is pleased to announce that Mark Little has been selected as the GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow for 2009-2010. Dr. Little received his B.A. in environmental geochemistry from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in geochemistry from Rice University. He was a Luce Scholar in the College of Urban and Environmental Sciences at Peking University, and is currently conducting postdoctoral research at Duke University.
Mark completed his degree requirements in January 2008. Cin-Ty Lee was Mark's advisor.
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(added October 2009)
Davin Wallace Awarded SIPES Foundation Scholarship
Davin Wallace, Earth Science Ph.D. sedimentology student, working primarily along the Texas and Louisiana coasts, has been awarded a scholarship by the SIPES Foundation. Each year, SIPES (The Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists) selects students with outstanding academic records in earth science or engineering. John Anderson is Davin's advisor.
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(added October 2009)
Geological Society of America awards Professor Cin-Ty Lee 2009 Donath Medal
The Geological Society of America has bestowed its prestigious Donath Medal - the GSA's Young Scientist Award - upon Rice's Cin-Ty Lee. This is one of the top four awards given annually by the Geological Society of America, a global professional society with a mission of providing a means for professional growth for Earth Scientists of all levels.
The Donath Medal is awarded for outstanding achievement in contributing to geologic knowledge through original research that marks a major advance in the earth sciences. One of these contributions is Dr. Lee's research and study of the continents and to understanding why Archean cratons (the oldest, most stable parts of continents) are so strong. Additionally, Professor Lee has published ground-breaking findings on how basalt chemistry can be used to infer the pressures and temperatures of their source within the Earth's mantle.
With the reciept of this honor, Dr. Lee can be considered to have achieved a 'hat trick' of young scientist awards (the two previous awards being from the AGU and the Geochemical Society).
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(added February 2009)
Professor Cin-Ty Lee receives 2009 F. W. Clarke Award from the Geochemical Society
The Geochemical Society, a non-profit scientific society which encourages the application of chemistry to the solution of geological and cosmological problems, has named Rice's Cin-Ty Lee as their 2009 recipient of the F.W. Clarke Award.
The F. W. Clarke Award is an annual honor made to an early-career scientist for a single outstanding contribution to geochemistry or cosmochemistry, published either as a single paper or a series of papers on a single topic. This award is named for the chemist Frank W. Clarke who is considered the "Father of Geochemistry" as he is credited with having determined composition of the Earth's crust.
Other recipients of this award are listed here: http://www.geochemsoc.org/awards/fwclarkeaward.htm
Congratulations, Dr. Lee! Our department is proud of you.
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(added February 2009)
Doctoral candidate Fanwei Zeng recipient of North American Carbon Program student travel award
Fanwei Zeng, recently honored with a student travel award from the NACP, will soon be traveling to San Diego, CA to present a poster to the All Investigators Meeting of the North American Carbon Program (NACP). The poster that she will be presenting at this meeting is titled "The Effects of Land Use on Riverine CO2 Isotopic Signatures in the U.S. Gulf Coast."
Congratulations on this award, and good luck with your presentation, Fanwei!
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(added January 2009)
Rice Earth Science Emeritus Professor honored with German Geophysical Society's highest award
The Executive Committee of the Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft (DGG, German Geophysical Society) has decided to bestow its highest award, the Emil Wiechert Medal, on Rice University's Manik Talwani. This award will be presented to Professor Talwani at the annual meeting of DGG to be held in March at Kiel, Germany. This medal bears the name of the first president of the German Geophysical Society, famed seismologist Emil Wiechert, who founded the DGG in 1922. In addtition to having this honor bestowed upon him at that time, Professor Talwani will also deliver the keynote lecture at the DGG annual meeting.
Since first being awarded in 1955, the Wiechert Medal has been awarded to 17 scientists, all who have made outstanding contributions to the field of geophysics.
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(added December 2008)
Rice-led group, "Team Biochar," takes top prize in the City of Houston's "Recycle Ike" competition
A team of researchers, faculty, and students coming together as "Team Biochar" was awarded the top prize for their idea submission in a competition created to find solutions to the issue of disposal of epic amounts of waste generated by Hurricane Ike. Department of Earth Science group members include researcher, Dr. Bill Hockaday; Earth Science undergraduate and Wiess College senior, Jeremy Caves; Earth Science Assistant Professor, Dr. Carrie Masiello; and ESCI Graduate Student, Michael Keller. Other Team Biochar members include the Rice Biochar Group's Dr. Kyriacos Zygourakis, a Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering faculty member and Department Chair; as well as Richard Johnson and John Gaunt.
The awards were announced at Houston's City Hall on December 10th, with the $10,000 prize going to the team for their innovative and environmentally sound solution for storm-generated debris disposal.
The team's proposal is to build a research bioreactor which would be used to heat the resulting biomass from shredded tree debris to produce biochar charcoal for soil enrichment, with the resulting methane gas to be sold for energy production. The team anticipates that an endeavor such as this could potentially generate revenue for the city.
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(added December 2008)
ESCI senior Mairi Litherland receives 2008 Undergraduate Scholarship from the Houston Geological Society
Rice Earth Science undergraduate and Brown College senior, Mairi Litherland, has been awarded one of the HGS Undergraduate Scholarships for 2008. This scholarship has been awarded by the HGS Undergraduate Scholarship Foundation annually since 1984 and is bestowed upon deserving students who are pursuing undergraduate degrees in geology-related fields at one of this region's academic institutions.
As part of her undergraduate experience, Mairi spent the summer of 2008 as an intern at the Lunar Planetary Institute, working one-on-one with scientists at the LPI and the NASA Johnson Space Center, experiencing cutting-edge research in lunar and planetary science. When not pursing academic endeavors, Mairi is active in the community, having helped with cleanup work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and volunteering with the Houston Food Bank in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, among other activities. A musician and singer, Mairi is also actively involved with Rice's Marching Owl Band and Rice's Light Opera Society.
Congratulations, Mairi!
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(added August 2008)
Cin-Ty Lee recognized as outstanding junior researcher by AGU
Associate Professor Dr. Cin-Ty Lee was recently chosen as the initial recipient of the American Geophysical Union's Hisashi Kuno Award, the newest award bestowed by the VGP Section of AGU for outstanding contributions to the fields of Volcanology, Geochemistry, or Petrology. This accolade, created in honor of Dr. Kuno, the late petrologist who was a renowned professor at the University of Tokyo, is based on the quality of publications arising from work performed up to seven years past the receipt of the AGU member's Ph.D.
A reception to recognize this honor will be held for Dr. Lee on September 12th.
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(added August 2008)
Jeremy Caves wins Udall Foundation Scholarship
Rising senior Earth Science major, Jeremy Caves, was recently honored with a 2008 Udall Scholarship, an award which seeks to recognize future leaders across a wide spectrum of environmental fields. One of the criteria that the Udall Foundation recognizes in bestowing this prestigious scholarship is a students' demonstrated commitment to a career related to the environment.
Jeremy hails from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he developed a deep love for mountains and deserts. He loves anything outdoors, is an avid backpacker and birdwatcher, and hopes eventually to become a much more well-rounded naturalist. Jeremy spent the the 2008 spring semester in Samoa studying invasive ants. At Rice, he works to make the campus more sustainable and promote environmental awareness among his fellow students. Ultimately, he hopes to work in academia or for a federal agency, protecting and researching the wild areas he loves.
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(added March 2008)
Fenglin Niu receives National Science Foundation Career Development Award
The Earth Science Department is proud to announce that Professor Fenglin Niu recently received an NSF CAREER award from the Earth Science Research (EAR) Geophysics Program. This very prestigious award provides five years of funding for Dr. Niu to pursue research seeking to make significant progress in our basic understanding of deep processes that are related to the formation and evolution of the Earth's inner core and mantle heterogeneities. In addition to this goal, successful outcome of the proposed work could also constitute a major step towards monitoring subsurface stress transients that accompany and perhaps precede seismic activity, as well as promoting seismology studies for undergraduates and raise public awareness and readiness for large earthquakes and tsunamis.
As part of the education component, Dr. Niu has proposed the utilization of an on-campus seismograph to promote students' appreciation to seismology and Earth science and a direct effort to promote seismology in local community colleges and displaying modern seismograph at local science museum to raise public awareness and readiness for large earthquakes and tsunamis. This grant also proposes to develop a new introductory geophysics course "An Introduction of Plate tectonics, Earthquakes and Volcanoes" for major and non-major undergraduates and to provide research activities for undergraduate students.
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(added March 2008)
John Anderson conferred as Durham University's 2008 Distinguished Visiting Lecturer
Dr. John Anderson recently returned from an appointment as the 2008 Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Durham University in Durham, England. While in residence, Dr. Anderson presented four lectures on the following topics: "Post-LGM History of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," "Cenozoic History of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet," "Mountain Denudation by Patagonian Glaciers," and "Coastal Response to Accelerated Sea-Level Rise."
The title of Distinguished Visiting Lecturer from this institution is a significant honor bestowed only on those individuals who have made significant contributions to teaching and research activity within their discipline.
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(added February 2008)
Alison Henning Wins Award for Summer Course
Alison Henning, lecturer in the Department of Earth Science, has been selected to receive the Virginia and Griff Lawhon Digital Education Award for 2007. The award was created in 2005 to support the exploration of new and innovative applications of information technology for teaching and learning.
Henning received the award for her summer course ESCI 515: Geophysical Field Work for Educators. Participants in the course for educators have used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to locate lost graves at a pair of historic African-American cemeteries in the Houston area. Henning plans to use the award to purchase additional GPR equipment to support the course.
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(added May 2007)
Alan Levander, Department Chair and Carey Croneis Professor of Earth Science, to receive the Woollard Award of the Geophysics Division of the Geological Society of America.
The Woollard Award is given for outstanding contributions to geology through the applications of the principles of geophysics. Professor Levander, whose main research tool is seismology, is widely recognized for his scientific leadership in forefront research on the structure of the crust and upper mantle. He has made major contributions to understanding the structure and tectonics of the Pacific-North America plate boundary both on- and off-shore of California, the structure and evolution of the Brooks Range in Alaska, the structure and evolution of the western interior of North America, and the structure and tectonics of the Caribbean-South America plate boundary. He received the news of this latest award while in Germany on a research leave of absence supported by a Humboldt Fellowship. The award will be presented to Professor Levander at the annual meeting of the GSA in October in Denver.
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(added April 2007)
John Anderson is the recipient of the 2007 Francis P. Shepard Medal from the SEPM.
The Francis P. Shepard Medal for Marine Geology is awarded in recognition of "Excellence in Marine Geology." Nominees for the medal will be persons who have a sustained record of outstanding research contributions to Marine Geology (e.g. the distribution and characterization of modern sediments, marine geomorphology, or the structure of continental margins) or to other significant aspects of Marine Geology, such as geophysics, geobiology, and geochemistry, providing there is a clear link to marine sedimentation. The recognition is not to be limited to members of the Society or other professional organizations, nor to citizens of any one country. Recipients of the Shepard Medal are eligible as later nominees for the Twenhofel Medal.
Award winners are listed on the SEPM web site.
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(added April 2007)
Doctoral candidate, Priyank Jaiswal, receives SEG Foundation Award
Earth Science Ph.D. candidate, Priyank Jaiswal, has been awarded a 2007-2008 Educational Award from the SEG Foundation. In 1956, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists began a program of encouraging the establishment of scholarship funds by companies and individuals engaged or interested in the field of geophysics. Ultimately, the SEG Foundation was organized to serve this need. The SEG Scholarship Committee - composed of eight members of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, who are appointed by the Chairman of the committee - selects the recipients of the awards. This award is provided to students who make significant contribution in the field of geophysics through their research.
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(added April 2007)
Doctoral candidate Fanwei Zeng receives Texas Water Resources Institute grant
Fanwei Zeng received a student grant from the Texas Water Resources
Institute for her project "Carbon isotopic measurements of dissolved
inorganic carbon: A new tool to assess groundwater-river exchange in
the Brazos River Basin" through their Graduate Student Grant Program.
More information about this program can be found at: http://twri.tamu.edu/usgs.php
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Martha Lou Broussard '57 is a recipient of the 2007 Meritorious Service Award
Martha Lou Broussard has shown decades of dedication to the students and faculty of Rice's Department of Earth Science. She was the first woman to graduate from what was then the Rice Geology Department, and after a successful career in the oil industry, she joined the department in 1983 as department coordinator. Martha Lou officially retired from Rice in 1989, but has been the volunteer alumni coordinator since that time. She organizes events across the country when alumni gather for professional conferences, and has organized two festivals in honor of retiring faculty which attracted alumni and other geologists from around the world to come to Rice. Additionally, she was responsible for many of the arrangements for the 50th anniversary celebration of the Earth Science Department, as well as supporting smaller department events each year. Every year Martha Lou performs innumerable tasks that help keep countless alumni connected to Rice and to each other.
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Morgan Gallagher honored by American Geophysical Union
In recognition of her presentation, The Effects of Decomposition on the Oxidative Ratio and Carbon Oxidation State of Organic Matter, delivered at the 2006 Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, the Biogeosciences Section of the AGU has selected Ms. Gallagher to receive their Outstanding Student Paper Award. This honor recognizes students whose presentations are considered to be exemplary amongst their peers and to set a standard of excellence for others to aspire to.
In honor of this achievement, Morgan will receive a formal certificate of achievement and official mention in an upcoming publication of Eos, the weekly newspaper of AGU.
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