Welcome to the ESS 2006 Awards

Presented by Prof. R. Winglee, May 25, 2006.

Welcome everyone to the annual ESS awards program. This is a great time of year – the academic year is almost over, you who are graduating are thinking “no more classes, no more exams” (at least for a little while). For those of you still here, this is a good time because many of you are about to head out into the field, into the wide open spaces to do many amazing things. This is also a great time because I get to celebrate and acknowledge the many accomplishments that have been made during the year, and support further achievements by the awards about to be given out.

Before we start there are a few things I would like to say:

1. This has been an unusually hard year for us. We have lost several dear faculty members: Bob Bostrom, Tony Qamar, and Dick Stewart - they will all be sorely missed.

2. Stu McCallum who has been the MC of these programs for so many years has now asked to step down from these proceedings, and we really appreciate all his years of hard work. So if this year’s program is a little rough around the collar, please be tolerant…and I most certainly can’t tell the stories that Stu does. Thank you Stu for all of your hard work.

3. The development of the awards programs is made possible only through the kind donations of the friends and family of Earth and Space Sciences. We are especially lucky to have several of them here today:

   1. Jon (and Carol) Avent - Jon is in the audience today - he and his wife, Carol, have been very generous in the last several years in helping us with support of Johnson Hall, support of student field trips, and giving to the "Friends of ESS" fund which allows me full discretion to use money to meet our priority needs. Jon received from the UW his MS in '62, his Ph.D. in '65, and went on to have a very successful academic career at Fresno State. He and his wife live on Lopez Island and spend a lot of time volunteering both locally and internationally.

   2. Robert Bassett - Bob is here today and is joined by his daughter, Elaine. Bob graduated from the UW in Mining Engineering in '45. Two years ago he made an extremely generous gift by creating a general endowment that helps support the department in many ways. This general endowment will someday be changed into a new departmental professorship called the "Robert and Nadine Bassett Endowed Professorship", named for him and his wife. Bob had a great career, having studied under some of our older but very well known professors in the department like George Goodspeed.

   3. Everett “Pete” and Andrea Paup - Pete's wife Andrea could not join us today, but Pete and Andrea have helped us twice this year with large gifts to help us finish Johnson Hall. We are so appreciative of that. They have also very generously created a summer field award which we will award today called the "Pete and Andrea Summer Field School Scholarship". Pete is a Seattle native who began at the UW, transferred to Stanford soon after, and made a successful career in construction.

   4. Ted and Alice Frost (and Bob and Carol Frost) - Ted was an Olympian in crew and holds a BA in Business from ‘58. You will see him around since he is taking courses as an Access student in ESS and Biology.

   5. Tucker Barksdale - Tucker has a BS from the UW from the College of Forest Resources in '73, an MS from Education in '94, and he is the son of one of our most famous past faculty, Julian Barksdale. Last year, we gave out our first "Barksdale Service Award", thanks to a lead gift by Eric Cheney which was followed by many other generous gifts including one by Tucker himself. We are delighted that you could join us.

   6. I would also like to thank the continuing support of Wilbur Hallauer and Kenneth Robbins for Field Camp student support.

Your contributions help the students in so many ways – thank you very much.

There are two new fellowships that have been created that have generated funds this year and will be available for awards in the near future, including:

Stephen Warren –Graduate Student Fellowship

Tony Qamar Family and Friends – Qamar Memorial Graduate Student Fellowship

I take great pride in acknowledging how hard the faculty, staff, and students have worked to get us into the building. We celebrated their contributions at our grand opening, but since then I asked everyone to help finish the stone work in the building. First I would like to thank Eric Cheney, Darrell Cowan, and Mike Brown for initiating this work. Now, could all those that have pledged or contributed to the rock slabs and rock benches please stand up and be fully acknowledged.

Earth and Space Sciences Special Awards

Julian D. Barksdale Service Award (Est. 03/2005 by Prof. Eric Cheney)

Julian Barksdale arrived at the UW from Yale in 1936. He single-handedly mapped the Methow Valley in the northeastern Cascade range. He served our country in WWII on active duty in the Navy. He contributed greatly to the UW mission over a period of 40 years, including Chairman of the Faculty Senate, first Director of the A&S Honors Program, and he served as the University Marshall for many years.

To honor a current student, alumnus/a, faculty or staff member in ESS for his or her exceptional contributions in support of either the Department's or the University's mission.

• Selected by: No less than two persons appointed by the Chair

• Based on:

(1) Superior, sustained service or a special one-time contribution to the mission of the UW or ESS; or

(2) Demonstrated extraordinary excellence in the performance of job duties and responsibilities while contributing to a positive and collaborative work environment; or

(3) Routinely delivered exemplary service to others either within or beyond the UW.

• This award is specifically for service, and not research or teaching (however, service that promotes research or teaching is eligible).

Since the previous winner was a faculty member, special attention was given to staff this year. There are several staff members that fell into the deserving category including: Judi Gray, D.Ellen McDannald, and Ed Mulligan. The winner was selected after much discussion, and was the staff member described as

“your man in the seismo-lab”, “the earthquake guy”, and “Professor Earthquake”.

He joined the department in 1993 and is regularly seen on TV, but he must admit he is graying out a bit. He does have an official title as the “Public Information Specialist” for the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network, but he is referred to by different groups as “Seismic Lab Coordinator,”  “Public Outreach Specialist,” and “Seismic Information Officer.”

The recipient of the Barksdale Service Award for 2006 is William (Bill) Steele..

Excellence in Teaching Award

Mike Brown, our former Chair, noted that we have spectacular teachers within the department but, under the University system, very few of our truly deserving faculty and lecturers were getting proper acknowledgement. In 2004, the Excellence in Teaching Award in ESS was created. The first recipient was Terry Swanson. The second recipient was Stu McCallum.

The awardee is determined by input from past & present graduate students and from our undergraduate students. A subset of the undergraduates met with the committee to discuss experiences they had with the various professors and lecturers. This year there was a lot of discussion – these discussions come from the fact that we are truly a interdisciplinary department and with that comes expertise and incredible student experiences is so many fields.

The committee wanted me to give honorable mention to the two runners-up: Gerard Roe and Bruce Nelson.

It was noted about this year’s recipient that…“His teaching was like maple syrup – the pure distilled essence of the topic. Once you understood the big picture, you could delve into the details.”

I think we have some mixed metaphors but I think you get the idea.

Another student wrote, “I remember vividly his talent for guiding our discussions, both in the classroom and in the field, so that the focus remained clearly on the big questions. He also has the remarkable ability to cut off a complex debate with a simple observation.”

(He does this in committee meetings and faculty meetings too!)

The winner of this year’s Excellence in Teaching Award is Darrel Cowan.

Earth and Space Sciences Student Awards

Almost all the awards are based on scholastic achievement, many cite character and promise as a criterion, several require applicants to demonstrate financial need, and a few specify a particular field of study.

All undergraduate majors and all registered graduate students are eligible for awards. Most (not all) of the awards require an application from students and letters of support from faculty members.

We will begin with Undergraduate awards and prizes, move on to Graduate Fellowship awards and finish up with the Graduate Research Support awards. We will also hear from one of our graduating seniors and one of our senior graduate students.

ESS Undergraduate Student Awards:

Howard and Leila Coombs Scholarship.

Howard Coombs served as chairman of the UW Department of Geological Sciences from 1952 to 1969, overseeing the department's major period of growth. He had received his early training in engineering geology by working with Henry Landes, then State Geologist and UW geology department chairman. They investigated the geology of dam sites on the Columbia River for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.

As the premier engineering geologist of the Pacific Northwest from the 1950s to the 1980s, "not a hydroelectric dam or nuclear power plant was built without his stamp of approval" reflects Eric Cheney. Coombs served as consultant to the cities of Seattle and Tacoma, to several private and public utilities, and to various other state, federal, and private engineering organizations.

In 1950, Coombs went to Japan as geological advisor to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces under the aegis of the Agency for International Development. He worked with the Japanese on citing 16 dams, and was awarded a Special Service Commendation by General Douglas MacArthur for his achievements. Appointed in 1976 as the geologist member of the U.S. Department of Interior Blue Ribbon Panel, Coombs helped to determine the causes of the failure of Teton Dam in Idaho.

Funds for this Coombs Undergraduate Scholarship are primarily a 1976 gift from the estate of Richard Fuller. The scholarship fund was augmented by a major gift from Howard himself shortly before he died and he requested that his wife’s name be added. Historically this fund provides a scholarship to undergrad juniors or sophomores with excellent academic records. The award is for in-state tuition and this year’s recipient is…

Jesse Einhorn.

Afton Woolley and James William Crooks Scholarship

This is one of two scholarships [see also, field camp awards below] endowed by Ms. Afton Crooks and it is intended to support one or more students. Mrs. Crooks graduated with a BA in English in 1947. She lives in Oakland, California, and insists on hearing from the chairman and the recipients of awards made in her name. Going back to her roots, she set up a scholarship in the English Department. But she wanted to do more and so she provided funds to set up a scholarship in memory of her husband, who was a student of J. Hoover Mackin. Hoover Mackin was one of the most distinguished professors at the UW and is cited as among the 100 most influential professors associated with the UW over its 140 year history. Mackin started in the department in 1934 and always thought of himself as a geomorphologist. But, over time, he became an engineering geologist working on dam and reservoir problems, a structural geologist and map maker, an economic geologist successful in locating and characterizing ore deposits, a field petrologist, an expert in volcanic ash flows and flood basalts and, finally, one of the foremost lunar geologists of the Apollo era.

This award is for in-state tuition and this year’s recipient, representing truly an interdisciplinary approach for both Earth and Space Sciences, is…

Angela Stickle.

Harry Wheeler Fellowship

Funds for the Wheeler Fellowship are provided by friends, colleagues and students of Harry. Harry Wheeler was hired away from the Univ. of Nevada to the UW in 1948 where he taught until his retirement in 1975.

Harry started out his career as a paleontologist, later became a world leader in physical stratigraphy, and pioneered the use of unconformity-bound sequences for regional and intra-continental correlations. Harry was one of the founders of modern sequence stratigraphy. There are two recipients for this year’s award…

Angela Stickle and Angela Martin

Field camp is an enormously important experience for students. Talking to the students, it is a mixture of boot camp with extreme sports, where they encounter the freedom to move about and fully appreciate the processes that go into shaping our Earth while having the responsibility of producing a gradable product far from the comforts of campus life.

Afton Woolley and James William Crooks Scholarship (Field Camp)

In addition to a undergraduate tuition scholarship (see award above), Ms. Crooks has provided substantial field camp support over the years. Thanks in large part to the efforts of Darrel Cowan, Ms. Crooks recently increased her endowment for this scholarship.

This scholarship pays for the entire cost of field camp. The recipient is…

Eric Hendrickson

Wilbur G. Hallauer Field Camp Scholarship

This scholarship is made possible by a generous gift from Mr. Hallauer and pays the entire cost of field camp. Mr. Hallauer graduated from the UW with a degree in Education in 1937. He served 20 years as a State Senator and was head of the State Department of Ecology in the 70’s. He was instrumental in the development of the community college system and this is reflected in the conditions attached to this award. Mr. Hallauer has specified that his scholarship support a field course student who transferred to the UW after completing a course of studies at a community college. The recipient of the Hallauer scholarship is…

Jesse Einhorn

Post-ceremony note: Jesse was unable to accept the scholarship this year and it was subsequently awarded to…

Lars Gilmour

Everett and Andrea Paup (Everett please come down.)

Over this last year we have been greatly helped by their donations to the department that helped finance the stone slabs in Johnson Hall. In addition with their most recent generous donation we are able to create The Everett and Andrea Paup Summer field camp award. The recipient is…

Morgan Williams

Kenneth C. Robbins Field Course Scholarship

This scholarship is made possible by a generous gift from Ken Robbins. Ken Robbins graduated from UW in 1950 in Civil Engineering and later returned to get a second degree in Geology in 1955. Ken’s gift to support a field school student is made because of his strong belief that “field school is a necessity for all geology majors.” This is a good example for the graduating class that when you become rich and famous to think about your home institution, possibly in a favorable light after you have forgotten all those bad experiences with exams. The recipient of this year’s Robbins field course scholarship is…

Margot Ferencz

Field Course Tuition Scholarships

The George Goodspeed fund is used for this partial tuition scholarship augmented by the Harry Wheeler fund. As already mentioned, Wheeler was faculty member from 1948 to 1976. George Goodspeed preceded Harry, working for the department between 1936 to 1952. He was a serious geologist and wanted “Geology 1” to be a serious course for majors. Prior to exams he would renumber his specimens. It was reported that 30% of the class failed to listen to advice from former students in that they only learned the numbers of the samples and not the actual properties of the samples – I think those traditions are still amongst us today.

Partial tuition scholarships are being awarded to all students registered for ESS 400:

Danny Abell, Allison Borthwick, Brandy Brooks, Bret Buskirk, Brendan Fahey, Margot Ferencz, Melissa Fioentino, Lars Glimour, Daniel Gleason, Eric Hendrickson, Holly Olson, Travis Orloff, Karl Peopjoy, Joshua Rowe, Stephen Rush, Karen Shell, Christina Stephen, Greg van Etten, Morgan Williams, Todd Griffin and Sanjoy Som

Undergraduate Service Award

This award is given to undergrads who has donated major amounts of time and effort to make life more pleasant and enjoyable for their peers and who represent the collegial spirit of the department. The GeoClub is an important undergraduate club that organizes and runs the department graduation ceremony, raises money for undergraduate field trips, invites speakers, and generally serves as a social club for our undergrads. This year’s awards go to…

Tara Smiley (in recognition of her efforts on behalf of her fellow students) Jennifer Glass (President of the GeoClub)

Douglas Merrill Prize for Excellence

Our final undergrad award is named in the memory of Douglas Merrill, Ron’s brother, who was tragically killed in a climbing accident on Mt. Stuart. Doug’s colleagues and classmates at UW made a small gift in his name. This is our most prestigious award for a graduating senior and it is presented to the senior with an exceptional record of achievement. The awardee also gets his/her name engraved on the plaque. This year the award goes to …

Jennifer Glass

ESS Graduate Student Awards:

Graduate Student Research Awards

This is a monetary award based on a submitted proposal that provides “assistance and supplemental support for graduate students [and faculty] in any of the earth sciences relating to understanding the physical processes active in shaping the crust and surface of the earth.”

Seventy percent of the funds for these awards come from the Dorothy Stephen’s fund which was created in 1981. Ms. Stephen’s had no direct ties to the department but created the fund because of her love for geology.

There are of course, insufficient funds available to meet all the needs of the students and so addition support is provided from the Peter Misch fund.

We had a large number of applicants this year so, yes, there are budget cuts. The committee work very hard to evaluate need and maximize allocation of resources. The dollar amount of each award is shown on the award certificates. The recipients are

Amanda Henck, Heather heuser, Theresa Kayzar, Ruth Martin, Emily Mullen, Eliza Nemser, Amber Hamilton, Steve Vance (Stephens fund)

Josh Carmichael, Luke Mioduszewski, Philipp Ruprecht, Hans Schwaiger, Alecia Spooner (Misch fund)

Chevron Graduate Support Scholarship

During the year Chevron interviews with many of our students. They seek to create professional relationships with the students irrespective of the student’s particular field of interest. In an ever increasingly global economy, professional paths are not always direct and expertise across many disciplines will often be needed to for one to be fully successful. This scholarship seeks to further the careers of the graduate students within Earth Sciences but supporting endeavors of the student’s choice (e.g., travel to conferences, equipment, field trips, etc.) as well all seek to help develop proper usage of Earth’s limited resources. This years recipients are

Brendan O’Donnell, Drew Stolar, Matthew von der Ahe

Howard Coombs Fellowship

Coombs Fellowship fund was initiated by a gift from James Gualtieri to honor the memory of Howard Coombs. Mr. Gualtieri was a MS (1966) student of Howards. Howard Coombs started at the UW as a freshman in pre-law in 1925 but saw the beauty and value of geology and earned a BS in geology in 1929, an MS in 1931, and worked during summers of 1931-33 as a ranger of Mt Rainier. He climbed the mountain more than 30 times. He obtained his PhD in 1931 and joined the faculty until his retirement in 1976, serving as chair for 17 years. He did the first geological studies of Mt Rainier and Mt. Baker and subsequently became interested in engineering geology. Howard became the state’s premier consultant on dam and nuclear plant siting and spent most of his career in this capacity. He was active well into his 80’s.

The Coombs fellowship is based on academic achievement and ,also, in recognition of excellence in teaching. This year’s recipients are …

Ruth Martin (excellence in teaching), Jessica Drees, Amber Hamilton

Marie Ferrel Fellowship

This fellowship, like the Dorothy Stephens endowment, does not come from someone directly related to the department. Marie Ferrel had a love of music but also a love of geology. As such she set up two fellowships: one in the Department of Music and one in Earth and Space Sciences. This fellowship pays one full year of tuition and helps to further the career of a student who shows a similar passion. This year’s Ferrel Fellowhip goes to…

Heather Heuser

Richard Fuller Fellowship

Many of the early geology students and faculty of the UW pioneered the study of the geology of our own region in addition to their research of geological structures elsewhere. Richard E. Fuller is an exceptional example of that versatility: not only did he make major contributions to the understanding of geological formations in Washington State but he also held the prestigious position of lead scientist studying the historic 1943 eruption of the Paricutin volcano in Mexico. Moreover, he served for many years as Director of the Seattle Art Museum, which was created to house works collected by Fuller and his mother.

Fuller carried out work for his master's thesis in the Snoqualmie Pass area of the Cascade Mountains. He established that a granite rock mass called the Snoqualmie granitic batholith had broken through its roof and poured out onto the earth's surface. This phenomenon is now widely accepted worldwide for granite magmas, but when Fuller documented it granites were believed to be emplaced deeply in the earth's crust.

Fuller began field work on his doctoral dissertation in 1926 on the Columbia Plateau of Washington State. He developed an explanation of the origin of the Asotin craters; and he brought to the attention of scientists nationwide the phenomenon of altered basaltic glasses in the region of the Columbia Plateau. Fuller established standards that are still useful in distinguishing chlorophaeite, sideromelane, and palagonite - three minerals characteristic of Cenozoic basaltic fields around the world.

In Fuller's doctoral thesis, awarded in 1930, he presented an array of chemical analyses of the rocks rhyolite, andesite, basalt, and latite that form the Steens Mountains. A term coined by Fuller to describe the texture of basalts ("diktytaxitic") remains a standard term in the glossary of geologists.

Beginning in 1933, Fuller served as President and Director of the Seattle Art Museum, while continuing his geological research as a faculty member of the UW. Over the next 32 years he carried out this dual role.

Upon the birth of the basaltic volcano Paricutin in a Mexican cornfield in 1943, Fuller was catapulted back full-force into geological research. Then President of the Volcanological Section of the American Geophysical Union, Fuller was tapped to become the Chairman of the U.S. Committee for the Study of the Paricutin volcano in 1944. He was the lead scientist studying that historic geological event, in which the world witnessed the birth of an entirely new volcano that rose up out of a farmer's field.

This year’s Fuller fellow is…

Dan Morgan

Peter Misch Fellowship

Born in Berlin in 1909, Hans Peter Misch started doing many things early in life--painting watercolors at 5, skiing at 6, collecting fossils at an outlying farm at 10, and taking up serious mountaineering at 14. As a "wunderkind" geologist, Peter received his doctorate at age 23 from Göttingen University, with his thesis that covered the geologic structures and petrology of the central Pyrenees in northern Spain. Because of his strong combined activities in geology and mountaineering, Peter was invited to join the scientific contingent of the 1934 German Nanga Parbat Expedition to the Karakoram Himalayas.

It was through these wide travels among the world's high mountains that Peter had become an avid supporter of the controversial theory of granitization, whereby--rather than occurring principally as an intrusive igneous rock--granite is found in the core of most ranges as the end-product of a metamorphic cycle that changes mud-to-shale-to-slate-to-phyllite-to-schist-to-gneiss and finally to granite.

By 1936, Hitler's persecution of anyone of Jewish ancestry had Peter, with his wife and baby daughter Hanna, leaving Germany for China where during WW II. He taught at Sun Yat Sen University in Canton before the Japanese invasion of Manchuria forced his move to Peking University in Yunnan. But his wife became ill and with Hanna returned to Germany, where she died during the Holocaust. Peter was not reunited with Hanna until at age 16 she came from Germany to Seattle.

After the war, Peter had come from China to California where he taught briefly at Stanford and was lured to the UW in 1947.

Despite a rapid-fire, German-accented delivery in the classroom, Peter's daily lessons were enhanced by his illustrative talent. By the end of each daily session his blackboard was covered from end to end with chalked sketches of geologic cross-sections of mountain ranges, showing faults, folds, and overthrusts he had discovered during his wide travels among the world's mountains. But, of course, his favorite outdoor laboratory was the North Cascades where he spent nearly 40 summers mapping the geology under grants from the GSA (Geological Society of America), and there he encouraged many of his grad students to find their theses areas.

This year’s Misch fellows are…

Aggeliki Barberopoulo (0.25 qtr RA) and Noah Finnegan (1 qtr RA)

Joseph A. Vance Fellowship

This fellowship is funded by a generous gift from Joe Vance and the intent of the fellowship is to support graduate students, preferably doing field work. The award may be used for tuition, living expenses, books, fees, travel, and field research and conference registration. Joe is an emeritus professor in our department and still actively involved in research. He has had a distinguished career entirely at UW where he was an undergraduate student, a graduate student, and a faculty member. We are honored that Joe has graced us with his presence today and I would like to call on him to say a few words and to personally present the Vance Fellowship.

The recipients of the Joseph Vance Fellowship are…

Theresa Kayzar (1 qtr RA) and Phillip Ruprech (1 qtr RA)t

David A. Johnston Fellowship

This fund provides a cash award for two students to be used for whatever he/she needs to further their research. The fund was set up by students, faculty, friends, and co-workers of Dave Johnston with a major donation from Lee Fairchild, one of Dave’s UW classmates. In 1975, when Mt. Augustine in Alaska erupted, Dave took time out to visit the active volcano, became entranced by it, and changed his thesis topic. After finishing his Ph.D. in 1979 Dave got a job with the USGS and was sent to Mt. St. Helens in 1980 to monitor the volcano. He was on duty at the USGS Coldwater II observation post during the May 18, 1980, eruption. David Johnston was one of 57 people who lost their lives in the eruption. The Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), named after David, is located at the terminus of the Spirit Lake Memorial Highway in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Southwest Washington State. This vantage point brings visitors within five miles of the north side of the volcano and offers spectacular views of the still-steaming lava dome, crater, pumice plain and landslide deposit.

Two awards are given out, one in geology and one in geophysics, to graduate students in the Ph.D. program who have demonstrated superior academic ability and creativity in research. The recipients of the David Johnston Fellowship are…

Noah Finnegan and Michelle Koutnik

ESS Awards Still Available During the Year

Livingston Wernecke Fellowship (1 qtr RA including tuition/fees)

This is our oldest fellowship. Livingston Wernecke (BS 1906) was a mining engineer who made his fortune in mining ventures in the Yukon. He had many exploits and was there at the death of the Treadwell Mine complex near Juneau in 1917– it was reported that in early April 1917 the ground around the recreation center of the mine started cracking and on April 20 the swimming pool sank 5ft. More cracking continued and the next day it was noted a creek was cascading into a 30-ft deep hole and a rising tide widened the hole, convincing official to order miners to evacuate. Undaunted Livingston entered the mine to investigate what was happening, where at 1750 ft down he was met with a wall of water and rock and made a harrowing escape to the surface.

Ms. Wernecke established the scholarship in memory of her husband, giving a gift that is split between Geology and Mining Engineering (Material Science) and is awarded to a meritorious student doing research in economic aspects of the earth sciences in the broadest sense.

George Goodspeed Fellowship

The driving force behind this fellowship was Julian Barksdale who spearheaded an effort to contact friends, colleagues, and students of “Goody” for donations. “Barky” was another of the major figures in our department history who started out his professional life as an igneous petrologist but is best known for his maps of the Methow Valley. Barky served as the University Marshall, the guy who carries the mace at graduation ceremonies. George Goodspeed (1919-1957 on faculty-16 yrs as chair) was also an igneous petrologist. He became an international figure as a result of his work on the origin of granites. He was elected president of MSA in 1957 at the tail end of his career.