Congratulations, Graduates and Award Recipients!

EPS graduates Will DeFliese, Ben Chartoff, Colin Carney, and Joniell Borges stand alongside faculty members Brad Sageman and Craig Bina at the department's commencement and awards reception, held in the Sloss Room.

The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences enthusiastically congratulates its six graduating students and three award recipients. Graduates and award winners were recognized at the EPS commencement reception on Friday, June 20th, in Locy Hall's Sloss Room.

This year, two students, Joniell Borges and Lingling Wu, earned doctoral degrees in Earth & Planetary Sciences. Borges, a geochemistry student recently hired by Chevron Oil Co., completed a doctoral thesis entitled Continental weathering products: Clay mineral surfaces as sinks for organic carbon in marine environments; Chemistry and petrography of bed sediments from large rivers--provenance and chemical weathering. Wu, a geochemistry student who has begun a postdoctoral research appointment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, authored a dissertation on Chemical Weathering: Theoretical Models, Field Study in the Yellow River Basin, and Laboratory Study of Microbially-Mediated Basalt and Granite Weathering. A third graduate degree was awarded to Derek Adams, who earned an M.S. en route to the PhD. Finally, Colin Carney, Ben Chartoff and Will DeFliese all received their Bachelor's degrees in the Earth & Planetary Sciences.

Among the award winners this year were Heather Bedle, Laura Swafford, and Ryosuke Kita. Bedle received the Marion Sloss Award, given to the department's outstanding teaching assistant, while Swafford won the Horace Scott award, which recognizes a graduate student who has demonstrated outstanding research potential. Additionally, EPS Department Chair Brad Sageman also announced that Ryo Kita has been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, a rare accomplishment for a junior undergraduate.

Once again, congratulations to all graduates and award winners on your impressive accomplishments! We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.