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Honorary Fellows

Is there someone you think deserves to be an Honorary Fellow of the Society? If so, the Executive Secretary would like to hear from you, writes Ted Nield.


Geoscientist 18.8 August 2008


The Society may elect up to 100 Honorary Fellows, but the sad fact is that turnover is inevitably rather high and numbers have, in recent years, fallen to below 60. The External Relations Committee, which has the task of recommending candidates for Honorary Fellowship to Council, is therefore canvassing the Fellowship for suggestions.

The existing Honorary Fellowship list stood as follows, in June this year.

Prof. Claude-Jean Allègre; Sir David Attenborough; Prof William Alfred Berggren; Prof Marland Pratt Billings; Prof Knut Olav Bjorlykke; Prof Hans Martin Bolli; Prof Wallace Broecker; Prof Bruce William Chappell; Prof Douglas Saxon Coombs; Prof Bruno D'Argenio; Dr Knud Ellitsgard-Rasmussen; Prof W Gary Ernst; Prof Alfred G Fischer; Dr Yves Oscar Fortier; Prof William Sefton Fyfe; Prof Augusto Gansser; Dr Warren Hamilton; Mr Edward Irving; Sir John Southwood Jennings; Dr Dimitri Kaljö; Prof Daniel Edmund Karig; Prof Victor Evremovich Khain; Prof Ikuo Kushiro; Prof Xavier Le Pichon; Prof Manuel Ramon Llamas; Prof Alexander McBirney; Prof Akiho Miyashiro; Dr Eldridge M Moores; Prof Emiliano Mutti; Dr Eva Elizabeth Paproth; Mr George P Petrides; Prof Ian Rutherford Plimer; Dr Cai Puigdefabregas; Dr Bangalore Puttaiya Radhakrishna; Prof John Graham Ramsay; Prof Frank Harold Trevor Rhodes; Prof John Rodgers; Prof Jia-Yu Rong; Prof Roye William Rutland; Dr Harrison H Schmitt; Prof Eugen Seibold; Prof Yafeng Shi; Dr Robert Leland Smith; Prof Nikolai Vladimirovich Sobolev; Acad Boris Sergeevich Sokolov; Prof Sun Shu; Prof Finn Surlyk; Dr Lynn R Sykes; Prof Stuart Ross Taylor; Prof D Rudolf Trümpy; Prof Seiya Uyeda; Prof John James Veevers; Prof Pinxian Wang; Prof Gerald Wasserburg; Mr Jiabao Wen; Prof Peter A Ziegler; Prof Hendrik Jan Zwart

Four nominations received from the ERC were considered by Council at its meeting on 9 April, when it was agreed to recommend them to the Fellowship for election at the Annual General Meeting on 4 June. These nominations were notified in the May Geoscientist. At the AGM Ian Dalziel, Eduardo de Mulder, Muhammed Asif Khan and Paul Tapponnier were duly elected.

At ERC's recommendation, Council has now endorsed a further four candidates:

  • Gwendy Hall, Editor, GEEA. Geological Survey of Canada. Gwendy Hall is an analytical geochemist, specialising in developing methods based mostly on the techniques of ICP-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and ICP emission spectrometry for use in geochemical mineral exploration and environmental geochemistry.
  • Sharon Mosher, past President of the GSA and chair of GeoScienceWorld. Prof. Mosher has held the Professor and William Stamps Farish Chair since 2001, and holds a doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana (1978). Her research is in Structural Petrology, Tectonics, and involves structural petrology and field-oriented structural geology. Her primary research interests are in the evolution of complexly deformed terranes, strain analysis, deformation mechanisms, and the interaction between chemical and physical processes during deformation. Dr. Mosher currently has three active research areas: the Mesoproterozoic of Texas, the Australian-Pacific oceanic plate boundary south of New Zealand, and the southwestern U.S. Mesozoic Maria Tectonic belt.Susan Solomon, is Senior Scientist at NOAA and works on atmospheric chemistry and its links to climate. Her current research projects include: photochemistry and transport processes in the stratosphere and troposphere; remote sensing of the atmosphere by spectroscopic methods and their interpretation; interpretation of ozone depletion at mid-latitudes and in polar regions; coupling between trace gases and the Earth's climate system.
  • James W Valentine, world-renowned palaeobiologist of the University of Berkeley. James W Valentine is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology. He has published widely and - in addition to peer-reviewed publications - has written several books, including: On the Origin of Phyla 2004; Phanerozoic Diversity Patterns : Profiles In Macroevolution 1985, (Editor); Evolving: The Theory And Processes Of Organic Evolution 1979, with Francisco J. Ayala; Evolution 1977 with Theodosius Dobzhansky, G Ledyard Stebbins and Ayala, and Evolutionary Paleoecology of the Marine Biosphere 1973

These names, having been hereby notified to the Fellowship, will go forward for election to Honorary Fellowship at the OGM on 17 September.

Making a nomination


The relevant Bye-law (2.11) and Regulations (R/FP/4) governing the nomination and election of Honorary Fellows can be found on the website. The Bye-laws can be read here http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/society/governance/byelaws. The Regulations may be downloaded from http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/society/governance/page261.html.

If you wish to nominate someone, you will need a nomination form, which can be obtained by emailing Stephanie Jones ([email protected]), or downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Completed nomination forms should be submitted to the External Relations Committee via Ted Nield ([email protected]) or the Executive Secretary.