A message from Kaj Johnson

David Polly is away this year in Finland on a much-deserved research leave at the University of Helsinki. David has been skillfully directing our department through six rather tumultuous years involving a major building renovation and move, the pandemic, and significant restructuring on campus with the arrival of a new President and Provost. We hope he returns in July 2025 refreshed and ready to take on his final two years as Chair. In the meantime, I am trying to hold things together as the Acting Chair. Campus seems to have quieted relative to the previous academic year with the dramatic events you may have read about in David’s previous departmental newsletter and in the news. But as you will see in this newsletter, the EAS department has been far from quiet!

We continue to run a vibrant colloquium speaker series that brought in seven speakers from across the US to update us on a range of topics including formation of ooids, Holocene flood dynamics, lithium deposits, and Earth system and climate modeling. A highlight for many of us this fall was presentations by our own graduate students and postdocs during our iDEAS seminar series.

We have done a lot of celebrating in 2024. Doug Edmonds was promoted to Full Professor and Ben Kravitz was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. We celebrated with Andrea Stevens Goddard for receiving a prestigious NSF CAREER grant which is selectively awarded to early-career faculty to support five-year research projects. Elizabeth Kenderes was awarded the David and Cheryl Morely ASURE Teacher-of-the-year Award from the College of Arts and Sciences for her outstanding efforts leading our ASURE (Arts + Sciences Undergraduate Research Experience) course that engages freshman students in science research in our department.

We were thrilled to host a visit and a party for alumnus Mark Leonard (1979, geology) while he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Arts and Sciences. Mark has been a long-time contributor to our department as a member of our Advisory Board and former director of the Judson Mead Geologic Field Station. We also got to celebrate with our undergraduate students, Jaxon Bennett and Stephen Shafer, for being elected to Phi Beta Kappa (ΦBK) this semester. ΦBK is the oldest and most prestigious academic honor society in the country and only a very select number of students at member institutions are elected annually. 

We are very pleased to add five new members to our Advisory Board this year. We welcome alumni Ellen Reat Wersan (Chevron) and Emily Gercke (Elemental Excelerator). In recognition of our growing Atmospheric Science program, we have added scientists from this field to our board including Beth Hall (Indiana State Climatologist), Bill Collins (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab), and Ruby (Lai-yung) Lueng (Pacific Northwest National Lab).

We have also been very busy with strategic planning, and we will continue planning well into spring 2025. The department has changed tremendously in the last nine years with the departure of 8 faculty and the hiring of 10 new faculty. Our new department and Field Station strategic plans plan will allow this new department to shape its future over the next 5-10 years.

As you read through this newsletter, I think you will see evidence of a thriving department of faculty, students, and staff who enjoy or work together. I think you will also see evidence of the generosity and legacy of alumni and former faculty. In addition to providing emeriti and alumni news, we are particularly pleased in this newsletter to feature letters from two of our alumni, Emily Gercke and Michael Graham, as well as a message to donors from David Polly.

After you are done reading this newsletter, I encourage you to listen to the Earth on the Rocks podcast by our very own Shelby Rader and learn more about some of our DEAS faculty!

Enjoy!

Kaj Johnson
Judson Mead Professor and Acting Chair