Chairman's Letter

Abstract

Greetings, friends of Yale Geology & Geophysics, this is my second year as Chair of our fine department, and it gives me great pleasure to tell you about the many events of the last year. There have been numerous changes, including new faculty, new graduates, expansion in numbers of undergraduate majors, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars; even the building has seen renovations. Early in 2007 we ran two simultaneous junior searches, one in mineral physics and geophysics, the other in isotope geochemistry. The searches led to the appointment of four new faculty, two in each of the disciplines. The new assistant professors are geochemists Hagit Affek and Zhengrong Wang, both of whom started in July 2007, and geophysicists Kanani Lee (who starts in July 2008) and Maureen Long (who starts in January 2009). Each brings unique talents to the Department, and they will oversee major expansions in isotope geochemistry, mineral physics and seismological research. You can find profiles and a photo of each of them later in this newsletter. As we add new young faculty, our formerly young faculty are getting older and this year saw the promotions of geophysicist Jun Korenaga to Associate Professor, and atmospheric physicist Steven Sherwood to Professor. You might recall that Jun Korenaga was the recipient of the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union in 2006, and Steve Sherwood received the Clarence Leroy Meisinger award from the American Meteorological Society in 2005. Bob Gordon retired in July of this year but continues as a Senior Research Scientist. Bob was an undergraduate ’52 and PhD ’55 in engineering; he returned to Yale after a stint at Columbia and has been a professor since 1957. In early November, the Department held a two-day symposium in Bob’s honor to highlight the singular contributions he has made in the fields of rock mechanics (including some of the early work that paved the GEOLOGY & GEOPHYSICS NEWS