Announcements

The California State University, Bakersfield geology department recently received a three-year, $400,000 grant from the Natural Science Foundation to study the climate history of the Southern San Joaquin Valley and support geoscience education in Kern County.

CSUB geology professors Dirk Baron and Rob Negrini, together with Manuel Palacios-Fest of Terra Nostra Earth Science in Arizona prepared the grant, which will support research designed to understand the regional climate history and flooding of the Kern River and its tributaries. The grant also provides significant funding to improve geoscience education in local middle and high schools and at CSUB.

According to Baron, receiving the grant is a significant accomplishment for CSUB since most Natural Science Foundation grants are awarded to large research universities. But more than that, he's excited about it because the grant will benefit students, the university and the community.

"This grant is great for the university because it will allow us to purchase new research equipment, support cutting-edge research by faculty and students, and help us recruit talented local high school students who may not otherwise attend CSUB," Baron said. "Students will benefit by the scholarships associated with the grant and it will also give them real research experience, which helps motivate them and gives them an edge when applying to grad schools."

"As for the community," Baron added, "our agriculture- and petroleum-based economy relies on geoscience expertise and provides excellent employment opportunities for geologists. Unfortunately, there's a real lack of K-12 teachers with training in the geosciences that could get kids interested in geology and make them aware of the many career opportunities in this field. This grant will significantly strengthen geoscience education in local schools by training middle and high school teachers. The community will also benefit from the research that will be conducted."

Each year of the grant, three $4,000 scholarships will be available to CSUB geology students. Grant funding will begin in September 2003.

 Geology undergraduate Anne Draucker has received the prestigious President's Associates Student Research Scholar Award.  Anne is one of 11 CSUB students to be granted a $2,500 award this year.  Anne has received this award for the development and implementation of her research project titled Identification of Distinct Obsidian Flows within the Coso Volcanic Field, California by Laser Ablation ICPMS and Archeological Implications.  To read Anne's abstract please click here.

Rick Schroeder, senior geology and computer science major will watch his work take off in May.  Last summer, Schroeder interned at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and worked on the Mars Radar Data Analysis research program, collecting data for the launch of the Mars Exploration Rovers.  NASA plans to launch one rover in May and one in June of this year.  Schroeder will attend the June launch ceremonies at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.  He also presented a paper on his research at the Mars Exploration Rover Landing Site Workshop in Arcadia and a poster at the Lunar Planetary Science Conference in Houston.

This Saturday (March 8), California State University, Bakersfield alumna, Sara Draucker will set out on an expedition to Antarctica to study the effects of global warming.

Draucker, 24, graduated from CSUB last summer with a bachelor's degree in geology. Because of her outstanding academic performance and meticulous college research, she received a prestigious fellowship from the University of Nevada, Reno where she has been working with Glenn Berger, an internationally recognized expert on quaternary geochronology.

Draucker and a research team will be taking a three-week research expedition along the west side of the Antarctic peninsula, where Draucker will be collecting marine sediments to assess global climate change. She'll be using a process called thermoluminescence dating to determine the last time the sediments were exposed to light.

Draucker is ecstatic about this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"I've never even flown on a plane larger than a two-seater so you can imagine how much of an adventure the whole trip is going to be," Draucker said. "I mean, Wow! I'm traveling to the other side of the world."

Dirk Baron, CSUB geology professor and Draucker's mentor said that Draucker was an outstanding student and has already made some incredible accomplishments.

"It's pretty unusual for an undergraduate student to receive such a prestigious fellowship, but then to be going on a research cruise and doing some pretty independent research in Antarctica; that's pretty remarkable," Baron said.

Draucker is from New Cuyama and graduated from Cuyama Valley High School in 1997. At CSUB, she received the 2001 Dean's Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Paper and a CSUB research scholarship in 2000. She also won the 2001 CSUB student research competition and graduated outstanding senior for the geology department.

The Geo Club will host Cindy Yeilding, AAPG Distinguished Lecturer on Thursday, April 3, 2003 on the CSUB Campus.  Ms Yeilding will be speaking on the Thunder Horse Discovery, an accumulation of over one billion barrels in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.   For more information about Ms Yeilding or to view her abstract please click on the links below.  The Distinguished Lecture Night* is open to all interested parties.  For more information please contact Geo Club's Public Relations Officer Lisa Denke at lldenke@aeraenergy.com

Ms Yeilding's Biography
Ms Yeilding's Abstract

*Distinguished Lecture Night is sponsored by ASI and CSUB Department of Physics & Geology.

Student Employment Opportunities

Students can register on Runner Link "Your connection to Jobs, Events, Employers"

Check out various Geoscientist employment opportunity websites on our Related Sites page!

Graduates of our program have no difficulty finding employment in their field or in closely-related fields when compared to majors from other disciplines on campus. In fact, as mentioned in the Financial Aid page, most of our students are employed part-time by local industry or government and often end up working for these firms or agencies after graduation.

Because our students receive a well-rounded science education, including cognate courses in chemistry, mathematics, physics, and computer science, they are especially well-prepared for careers as high school science teachers. The lack of qualified physical science teachers
state-wide provides many opportunities and choice of location for any of our students choosing such a career path.

Undergraduate students interested in graduate study at other institutions have done very well after receiving our B.S. degree. Our best students have been accepted into some of the best universities in the country and receive full financial support from these prestigious graduate schools amounting to as much as $30,000 per year.

Students who have taken our graduate courses are currently employed all over the state in a variety of positions with the environmental and petroleum industries, geotechnical firms, and government agencies.

CSUB Geoscience Students At Work

Above article courtesy The Bakersfield Californian, Sunday, June 1, 2003

DISCLAIMER: Statements found on this site are for informational purposes only. While every effort is made to ensure that this information is up-to-date and accurate, official information can be found in the University publications.