GMES PhD student, Elisa Piispa, has won an Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting. The title of Elisa’s presentation was “Paleomagnetism of the 1.1 Ga Baraga-Marquette dykes (Michigan, USA)”. The AGU Annual meeting was held in San Francisco, CA, December 15-19, 2014. Piispa’s PhD advisor is Aleksey Smirnov.
The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) Cities on Volcanoes 8 Conference was held September 9-13, 2014 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Nine students, alumni, and faculty/staff presented at the conference.
Those in attendance are pictured (left – right) below: Jennifer Telling, post-doc; Verity Flower, PhD candidate; Christine Sealing, MS graduate – INVOGE program; Kathleen McKee, MS graduate; Lauren Schaefer, PhD candidate; Anieri Morales Rivera, MS graduate; John “Jay” Wellik, MS graduate – PCMI program; Simon Carn, Associate Professor; and Lizzette Rodriguez, PhD graduate
Congratulations to the geo/mining department’s softball team! They took home the traveling trophy by defeating the forestry department in the graduate student government’s (GSG) summer 2014 softball league. This is the first time since 1991 the team has captured the title.

Bill Rose and Erika Vye were awarded a Keweenaw Heritage Grant to develop geoheritage interpretive materials for the Keweenaw National Historical Park, Calumet Unit.
Erika Vye has received the 2014 Chrysalis Scholarship. This award provides degree-completion funding for women geoscience graduate students whose education has been significantly interrupted by life circumstances. The awards are intended to cover costs associated with completion of her thesis/dissertation, beyond what is traditionally covered by primary research funding.
For the 9th consecutive year, Michigan Tech’s Peace Corps program is ranked 1st in the nation for having the largest number of Peace Corps Master’s International students. This clip (http://abc10up.com/michigan-tech-garners-national-acclaim-for-peace-corps-program/), which aired on ABC 10 News Tuesday, May 13, 2014, included interviews with two of our department’s returning Peace Corps Volunteers. Edrick Ramos and Tyler Barton were able to share their experiences. The clip also featured photos courtesy of Jay Wellik and Brie Rust.
In May 2014 this year’s senior design capstone group focusing on petroleum engineering was invited to the Northern Michigan Society of Petroleum Engineering (SPE) and the Michigan Oil and Gas Association (MOGA) meetings. Their talk, “A Technical Evaluation of the Sycamore Limestone Formation in the Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma” was presented at the SPE meeting where they were commended for the amount of work they were able to accomplish over two semesters. Data for the project was provided by Vitruvian Exploration LLC, and student travel was funded by Apache Corporation.