Hamilton Visiting Scholar in Geophysics
Lecture Series
The Hamilton Visiting Scholar in Geophysics Endowment celebrates the collaboration between SMU Earth Sciences and Geotech where Jack Hamilton served as engineer and CEO. Geotech designs and manufactures seismic instruments and its instruments were critical for the world wide seismic network. This program presents the SMU community with some of the best scientists in the geophysics and earth sciences world. Every semester we are priviledged to host a scientist setting a mark on the sphere of sciences.
Fall 2010
Albrecht Werner Hofmann continues his scientific endeavors as the Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, and a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Institute of Columbia University, New York, and as a Adjunct Professor at the University of Nanjing, China. His current reseach interest continues to focus on mantle sources of oceanic volcanism, the internal structure of the Hawaiian mantle plume, the global systematics of trace element geochemistry (“canonical" trace element ratios in volcanic rocks), and the origin and evolution of an ancient geochemical reservoir stored near the crust-mantle boundary.
PDF Fall 2010 Hamilton Scholar Schedule
Spring 2010
Fred T. Mackenzie, Professor Emeritus, Department of Oceanography, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii is an interdisciplinary scientist with a broad range of interests in sedimentary, marine, and global geochemistry. He is concerned with problems related to the global environment: past, present, and future. Fred T. Mackenzie has published an array of articles and books with his students and colleagues including: Our Changing Planet: An Introduction to Earth System Science and Global Environmental Change; Carbon in the Geobiosphere: Earth's Outer Shell, Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climatic System: Will the Warming Feed the Warming?; Interactions of C N P and S Biogeochemical Cycles and Global Change, and Evolution of Sedimentary Rocks.
PDF Spring 2010 Hamilton Scholar Schedule
Fall 2009
David J. Des Marais, a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, is currently
a team member on several of the missions to Mars including the rover missions (long term
planning), the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the Mars Science Laboratory. He is lead
author of The Roadmap for NASA's Astrobiology Institute, a consortium of national
laboratories, universities and private research groups investigating the origin of life in the
broadest sense and strategies for detecting life elsewhere in this solar system and on
planets elsewhere in the Milky Way. He is the current team leader for NASA Ames'
team for Astrobiology. Dr. Des Marais presented a lecture at the Frontiers of Flight
Museum, "Exploring Mars for Evidence of Life."
PDF Fall 2009 Hamilton Scholar Schedule
Spring 2009
Don L. Anderson renowned geophysicst and author of A New Theory of the Earth, spoke
on the "The Subterranean Cycle: The Continental Drip Hypothesis." His theory for the Earth
places plate tectonic evolution, hot spot volcanism, and the breakup of continents into an
evolutionary framework more consistent with insights from other planets.
PDF Spring 2009 Hamilton Scholar Schedule
Fall 2008
Richard Carlson, senior geochemist at the Department of Terrerstrial Magnetism at the
Carnegie Institution of Washington spoke on "A History of Earth's Formation." Dr. Carlson
and his colleagues presented sampling evidence of a recent historical discovery. In a Nuvvuagittug
region of Quebec, they collected samples of rock 4.28 billion years old. The oldest samples to date
from a previous date of 250 million years (video presentation).
(Pictures)
PDF Fall 2008 Hamilton Scholar Schedule
Fall 2007
Rodney C. Ewing, Donald R. Peacor Collegiate Professor, Department of Geological Sciences,
University of Michigan presented a lecture on "Nuclear Fuel Cycle vs Carbon Cycle: Plutonium
vs. Carbon." Dr. Ewing says, "The real question Plutonium versus carbon - which would you
rather have as your problem? I don't have the answer, but the points I'm raising are ones I think
people need to be considering."
PDF Fall 2007 Hamilton Scholar Schedule