EAS Alumni Magazine October 2023--Awards and Honors

EAS and the student-run Cornell Chapter of the American Meteorological Society hosted an event to celebrate the careers and retirement of Senior Lecturer Mark Wysocki and Professor Emeritus Steve Colucci, both leaders of the Atmospheric Science program for many decades.

Susan Riha retired in June after many decades of service to Cornell. Susan joined the faculty in 1980 as the Charles L. Pack Research Professor of Forest Soils. For many years she has provided a crucial link between the agricultural focus of CALS and the terrestrial science done in Snee Hall. 

EAS Director of Undergraduate Studies for Atmospheric Sciences Art DeGaetano was honored by Cornell with the 2023 Kendall Carpenter Advising Award. DeGaetano has been at Cornell since 2001 and is also Director of the Northeast Regional Climate Center. 

Kade Keranen was one of 16 2023 Engaged Faculty Fellows at Cornell through the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement. Kade’s Faculty Fellow in Engaged Scholarship project is titled Engaging Undergraduates and BIPOC Youth to Study Rapid Change in the Critical Zone.

EAS assistant professor Angeline Pendergrass won a 2023 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The fellowships, established in 1955, support early-career faculty members’ original research and education related to science, technology, mathematics and economics.

Sara C Pryor will lead a new Global Center focused on increasing the durability of wind turbine blades funded by the National Science Foundation.

Nicole Fernandez and Louis Derry were recently notified that a collaborative research proposal they are part of has been approved by the NSF. “Collaborative Research: Unraveling the link between water ages and silicate weathering rates at the catchment scale” was co-funded by the Geobiology & Low-Temperature Geochemistry and Hydrologic Sciences programs.

Associate Professor Britney Schmidt has been selected to deliver the John F. Nye Lecture. The Nye Lecture is presented annually and recognizes recent accomplishments and outstanding ability to present exciting scientific research and findings to AGU member scientists outside the Cryosphere section.

Andrew Zuza ‘11 was awarded the GSA’s Young Scientist (Donath) Medal Award for outstanding achievement in contributing to geologic knowledge through original research that marks a major advance in the earth sciences. Zuza is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Karen Fischer, the 2013-15 INSTOC Jack Oliver Visiting Professor, will receive the Inge Lehmann medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for outstanding contributions to understanding the Earth’s mantle and core. Fischer is a professor at Brown.

Brenhin Keller ‘10 will receive the AGU’s Hisashi Kuno award, the early career award from volcanology, geochemistry and petrology. Keller is an assistant professor at Dartmouth.

Eric Fielding, Ph.D. ’89 was elected a Union Fellow of the AGU. Fielding is a researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Chelsea Scott Ph.D. ’16 is co-recipient with Open Topography of the Open Science Recognition Prize from the AGU. Scott is an assistant research professor at Arizona State University.

Ph.D. student Matthew Pruden has received a Postgraduate Scholarships-Doctoral from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Three EAScience graduate students – Andrea Gomez-Patron, Olivia Paschall and Kayla Russo – are among the 55 Cornell graduate students selected as 2022 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program fellows.

Megan Holycross, assistant professor, was recognized with a Cornell Engineering Teaching Awards for outstanding work in developing a major new course in EAS. In her second year she invented  EAS 1180 How To Build a Habitable Planet, and has succeeded in attracting 116 students. Students taking 1180 are clearly sucked in, writing “Loved it!  … the subject material was super interesting and  my understanding of Earth as a natural system has deepened greatly” This success would be noteworthy for a faculty at any career stage, but it is worth emphasizing that her teaching success was out of the starting gate, in her first two years.

Patrick Fulton, assistant professor, was recognized with a Cornell Engineering Teaching Award for the quality of his instruction in five different classes: Hydrogeology, Geofluids, Earthquake Physics, Introduction to Groundwater, and Geophysical Analysis Tools. Comments from students include “The most engaging class I’ve taken,” “Dr. Fulton is extremely inclusive and respectful,” “Truly outstanding and a great asset to the department,” and “engaging and clear.”

Carolina Muñoz‐Saez, incoming assistant professor, was awarded the Geological Society of America's Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology, & Volcanology Division Early Geological Career Award.