Master of Science in Geology
65
21
100%
- Fall January 10
- Spring July 1
- Pullman: Yes
- 600 TOEFL Minimum score
- 96 TOEFLI Minimum score
- GRE
Degree Description:
The M.S. degree program in Geology focuses on fundamental questions in Earth Sciences ranging from how the Earth formed, how it has evolved through time, and how it operates and is changing today. Geologists at WSU study regions of the Earth from its deep interior to its highest mountains, they study Earth materials from the building blocks of the planets to the magmas that erupt from volcanoes to the sands on the seashores, and they study the Earth and its hydro-geochemical cycles on timescales from its very beginnings to the present day.
Admission Requirements:
Original transcripts must be requested and sent directly to the WSU Graduate School. SoE requires three (3) letters of recommendation from academic advisors and/or academic faculty you have taken classes from. SoE also requires you to provide the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) score. A Statement of Purpose is also required. International students must also provide Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) score. A TOEFL score of at least 600 (Paper-Based), 250 (Computer-Based), or 96 (Internet-Based) is required.
Student Learning Outcomes:
All graduates will be able to:
- To prepare students for professional careers:
- Attain knowledge and expertise in core disciplinary areas.
- Think critically and develop creative solutions to scientific problems.
- Effectively communicate the results of their research.
- Become visible members of the scientific community taking organizational and service roles.
- To enable students to become effective researchers and teachers:
- Recognize important scientific problems and contribute to solving them.
- Master the field, laboratory, data analysis and theoretical skills necessary to perform the research.
- Write research grant proposals or otherwise obtain research funding (expectation is higher for PhD students).
- Become effective teachers in field, laboratory and lecture-room settings.
- To provide scientific leadership and expertise at the local, state and national levels:
- Attract and retain world-class faculty in appropriate disciplinary areas.
- Assist students to engage in outreach activities.
- Prepare students to successfully compete for jobs in industry, academia, and government.
Faculty Members:
Beall-King, Allyson, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
I use collaborative modeling and system dynamics as an environmental problem solving methodology. Projects have included groundwater management in the Palouse Basin on the border of Washington and Idaho, surface water supply concerns in the Okanagan Basin British Columbia, endangered species management, and ecosystem services in the Coastal Carolinas. A USDA funded project on water resources in the Spokane-Coeur d’Alene basin, Yakima basin and the Columbia basin at large will launch in Fall of 2012.
Berger, Mike
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Bishop, John, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
plant ecology and evolution
Bollens, Stephen, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Boyd, Amanda, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Risk perceptions and communication in the context of health and environmental communication, energy policy, indigenous health and media perceptions of risk.
Brenkert-Smith, Hannah, M.S.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Carroll, Matt
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Human response to both the threat and reality of uncontrolled fire in the residential /forest interface as well as other social issues around controlled and uncontrolled wild-land fire.
Cooper, Catherine, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
– Geodynamics
– Plate tectonics/mantle convection
– Planetary evolution
– Lithospheric creation and deformation
– Early earth processes
Dauble, Dennis, PhD
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
– Field research and sample collection
– Endangered Species Act issues
– Columbia River fish passage and behavior
– Ecological risk assessment
– Ecological monitoring
– Resource management
Dimitrov, Alexander, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Information-theoretic and probabilistic approaches to neural computing and cognitive processes, non-linear neuronal models, chaotic dynamical systems, non-linear signal processing and prediction, systems identification, neural-based intelligent agents. Bioinspired engineering.
Felsot, Allan, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Dr. Felsot’s research and extension interests include hazard assessments of transgenic crops, pesticide drift and buffer zone design, reduction of insecticide application rates using new sprayer technologies, enhanced biodegradation of pesticides, remediation of pesticide waste in soil, best management practices for controlling agrochemical movement to surface and ground water, analytical chemistry of pesticide residues in soil, water, and food, pesticide toxicology, regulations, and risk communication. He teaches a graduate course entitled “Applied Environmental Toxicology.” He also team teaches the course, “Pesticides: Toxicology and Modes of Action.”
Ford, Frederick Andrew, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
– Energy and environmental problems in the western USA.
– Advancing use of system dynamics models for energy policy analysis.
– Renewable electricity generation and the benefits of energy storage.
Fremier, Alex
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
My research program is motivated by societies’ desire for sustainable and ecologically-based solutions to natural resource management problems. I am a trained ecologist with interests in coupling ecological and geomorphic processes to better understand ecosystem transformation. My research program explores multiple interrelated themes: (1) organismal and community-level ecology, (2) fluvial- and bio-geomorphology, and (3) social-ecological resilience related to ecosystem services both within the region and in developing countries.
Gaylord, David, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Clastic sedimentology; Reconstructing Quaternary paleoclimates using eolian and related deposits; Volcaniclastic successions and volcanic hazards assessment.
Goldberg, Caren, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Characterizing and predicting the distribution and gene flow of species in changing landscapes through empirical modeling.
Gross, Jason "Jackson"
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Hampton, Stephanie, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Hardesty, Linda
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Katz, Stephen, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Keller, Kent, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Chemical weathering and chemical denudation dissolve and wash the continents into the oceans, thereby controlling the chemistry of the ocean/atmosphere system and Earth habitability.
Kramer, Marc, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Larson, Peter
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Lewis, Reed
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Long, Ryan
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Long, Sean, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
I am a structural geologist who is primarily interested in the construction of mountain belts. Much of my research focuses on performing field-based tests of the predictions of models for the processes, dynamics, and feedbacks that operate in orogenic systems
Moffett, Kevan, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Moore, Barry, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Neill, Owen
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
New, Leslie, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
The use of hierarchical Bayesian state-space models to study species interactions with the environment and other species, including ecological modeling to investigate how changes in individual behavior, either anthropogenic or natural, can affect population dynamics.
Current research: estimating the impact of wind facilities on eagles in the US and the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas in reducing the impacts of noise in whale habitat.
Norton, Todd, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Stakeholder participation in community planning, shifting policy surrounding public land management (Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument), analysis of petroleum associations climate change discourse
Orr, Cailin Huyck, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
My research bridges aquatic ecosystem ecology and fluvial geomorphology with the goal to improve our ability to restore ecosystem functions to river-floodplain systems by better understanding the fundamental interaction between physiographic setting and ecological processes.
Ostrom, Marcia, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Patton, Regan
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Phillips, Ruth
Serves as: co-chair of graduate committee
Pratt, James
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Rachlow, Janet
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Reidel, Stephen
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Robbins, Charlie
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Nutrition and energetics of larger wild mammals.
Rollwagen-Bollens, Gretchen, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Rowe, Michael
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Sayler, Rod
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Schultz, Cheryl, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Ecology of at-risk species in response to key drivers: habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation, invasive species, alteration of ecosystem process, and global climate change.
Schulze-Makuch, Dirk, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Protection of drinking water from biological and chemical agents, microbe-environment interactions
Shipley, Lisa, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Foraging Ecology of Mammals
Stark, John
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Strigul, Nicholas, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Broadly: environmental problems and research in mathematical biology, as well as a variety of modeling, experimental and field studies in different areas such as ecotoxicology, soil, microbial and avian ecology.
Current primary research:
1) Forest modeling – One of the major directions of this project is to investigate effects of environmental stressors and different land-use practices on forest dynamics. Forested ecological systems can be considered as complex adaptive systems, which result from self-organization on multiple levels.
2) Ecotoxicology, in particular tungsten ecotoxiology, in order to provide a scientific basis for pollution regulation and environmental risk-assessment.
Swanson, Mark, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Compositional, structural, and function attributes of early succession on forest sites in the Pacific Northwest; ecology of native large mammals; forest disturbance processes, including fire and volcanic eruption; ad hoc participation in agricultural and horticultural research with partners within WSU.
Sylvester, Steve, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Reproductive Toxicology
Thornton, Daniel, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
Species distribution modeling, large-scale ecology, carnivore ecology and conservation landscape ecology, tropical wildlife conservation
Tissot, Brian, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Vervoort, Jeffrey, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
My fundamental interest as a scientist is to understand the Earth from the perspective of geochemistry. Radiogenic isotopes are important tools that enable us to understand how the Earth formed and how it has evolved through its history. Radiogenic isotopes also help constrain the geological processes that are operating on Earth today.
Watkinson, John
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Wielgus, Rob
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Wilkie, Kurt
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Wright, Aaron, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Research Focus: Activity-Based Protein Profiling of Microbes and Microbial Communities Involved in Biofuel Production and Drug Metabolism
Zamora, Ben, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair of graduate committee
Research Interests
– Properties, distribution, and environmental relationships of terrestrial ecosystems
– Fire ecology
– Palouse Prairie restoration
Contact Information:
- Graduate School
- Washington State University
- Stadium Way, 324 French Administration Building
- P.O. Box 641030
- Pullman, WA 99164-1030
- gradschool@wsu.edu
- P: 509-335-6424, F: 509-335-1949