News About US
The following sections contain news and information about our graduate students and faculty members, construction and
upgrade projects in the department, news from Emeriti and Alumni, and a list of our esteemed benefactors.

Our best undergraduates are sought by the top graduate programs in the U.S. We place three or
four students per year in the most highly competitive programs and about 10 additional students
student careers
in moderately competitive programs. Our M.S. students are recruited by the top Ph.D.

programs in the U.S. Conversely, we are able to draw students from top programs into
both our M.S. and Ph.D. programs. Our graduate students are annually recruited by two major and
several mid-sized oil companies. Service companies also conduct on-campus interviews each year.

Blaire Hensley-Marchand
Michael Smith
Katarina Topalov
Kevin Webster
Lin Wei
Ph.D. 2017
Ph.D. 2017
Ph.D. 2016
Ph.D. 2017
Ph.D. 2016
faculty position at
Fairfield College
Fairfield, CT and research
associate at Yale
University New Haven,
CT. full-time position with
Cloud Imperium Games
Austin, Texas.

work as an adjunct
at two universities
in Chicago and
volunteers her time
to a conservation
organization and a land
trust. post-doc at the
University of Arizona.

full-time research
geochemist at Petrochina
(governmental oil
company) Beijing, PR
China. external fellowships and honors
graduate awards
2017 Crossroads Conference
REBECCA CALDWELL
SEPM Outstanding Oral Presentation Award | Outstanding student
presentation AAPG – Honorable Mention
MATT WANKER
GSA Student Research Grant | Grant from Tobacco Root Geological Society
ERIN BENSON
2017 GSA Student Grant
KIRSTYN CATALDO
Vitaliano Grant in Aid of Research
SCOTT DAVID
GSA - John T. & Carol G. McGill Research Award
GRAHAM JOHNSON
Society of Sedimentary Geology, Student Research Grant | AAPG,
Alexander & Geraldine Wanek Memorial Grant
JOHN KEARNEY
GSA Graduate Student Research Grant | Stone Age Institute Graduate
Fellowship ALEX ZIMMERMAN
Estwing Academic Achievement Award
GRACE CARLSON
Undergraduate Poster
JOHN KEARNEY
John and Mary Droste Award
ALEX ZIMMERMAN
PH.D. Poster
JAMES ATTERHOLT
Mineralogical Society of America Undergraduate Award
PATRICK GRIFFIN
Award for best student presentation at the 12th International Symposium
on Applied Isotope Geochemistry (AIG-12)
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ANNA JESSE AND YINZHI WANG
Departmental Citizenship Award
JEFFREY VALENZA
Chevron Oil Company Fellowship
SILVIA ASCARI
Galloway Perry Horowitz Fellowship
ZHIYANG LI AND BRIAN THORNTON
Edward J. Grassman Fellowship
KUSHAL RAVIPRAKASH
Atmospheric Sciences Fellowship
CARRIE BURKE
Tudor Fellowship
BEI LIU
John Barratt Patton Award
BRITT ROSSMAN
M.S. Oral Presentation
REBECCA CALDWELL
PH.D. Oral Presentation




faculty news
david polly
EAS Professor David Polly is Associate Director of a successful IU Grand
Challenge initiative.

The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences will play a central role in
the multi-milliondollar IU Grand Challenges initiative called Prepared for En-
vironmental Change directed by Ellen Ketterson of the Biology Department.

The initiative aims to improve forecasts of climatic, hydrographic, and biot-
ic change (including disease vectors); assess public perception of risk and
improve methods for communicating the implications of environmental
change; reconfigure strategies for conserving natural resources and design-
ing resilient human communities; and develop strategies for governments
and businesses to invest productively in the face of large-scale environmen-
tal change. Sixteen new faculty positions will be created to support this work,
Watch a video from the IU Grand
Challenges initiative to get more
information about the Prepared
for Environmental Change grant,
as well as other efforts that
were funded by the IU Grand
Challenges Initiative.

https://grandchallenges.iu.edu/ including two in EAS in the area of climate modeling.

Several EAS faculty are involved, including David Polly who is the Associate
Director of the initiative, Chanh Kieu, Paul Staten, Doug Edmonds, Arndt
Schimmelmann, Peter Sauer, Edward Herrmann, Brian Yanites, Claudia
Johnson, and Chen Zhu. The initiative will bring several postdoctoral fellows
and graduate students to the department, upgrade our stable isotope facili-
ties, and add LiDAR technology.

MICHAEL HAMBURGER
Midcontinent EarthScope Workshop for Teachers
The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences hosted 20 middle- and high-school Earth science teachers for
“Midcontinent EarthScope Workshop” connected with its NSF-funded research project on Structure and Dynamics
of the North American Craton. The three-day workshop included lectures, demonstrations, exercises, discussions,
and two field trips to learn about structures associated with earthquakes in the Midcontinent.

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