Erin Wirth wins Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers

Before leaving office, President Joe Biden awarded nearly 400 scientists and engineers the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers early in their careers. 

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2024 PNSN Earthquake Catalog

In 2024 the PNSN located 3,272 earthquakes within Washington and Oregon. Another pretty typical year for seismicity in the PNW. Check out our most recent blog post which reviews our 2024 Earthquake Catalog.

Read more at PNSN

Professor Fang-Zhen Teng awarded Alumni Excellence Research Award

Professor Fang-Zhen Teng was awarded Alumni Excellence Research Award from alma mater University of Maryland for his expertise in isotope geochemistry.

Read more at University of Maryland Alumni Association

Desert planets like those in 'Dune' and 'Star Wars' unlikely to host life, NASA says

ESS PhD student Haskelle White-Gianella is quoted.

Read more at Space.com

Could deuterium be the key to finding aliens?

A new paper by UW ESS Professor David Catling and Assistant Professor Josh Krissansen-Totton, recently accepted in the Astrophysical Journal, explores how deuterium could play a key role in the search for extraterrestrial life.

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Tsunami researchers hunt for clues about the next big Pacific Northwest quake

ESS alum Carrie Garrison-Laney (UW Washington Sea Grant) is quoted and current ESS graduate student Bering Tse is mentioned in this Washington Post article on Cascadia paleotsunami research.

Read more at the Washington Post

Three ESS faculty among recipients of College of the Environment new seed grants

Three ESS faculty, professor Fang-Zhen Teng, associate professor Marine Denolle, and professor David Montgomery are among recipients of the College of the Environment's Seed Grant Program designed to foster new cross-college collaborations that use a system-based approach to understand environmental challenges.

Read more at UW Environment

Is there hope for the James Webb Space Telescope and the TRAPPIST-1 planets after all?

A recent study published in Nature Communications led by ESS assistant professor Josh Krissansen-Totton is referenced in a video by popular science communicator Dr. Becky Smethurst, an astrophysicist at the University of Oxford.

Watch on YouTube

The power of a logjam: A vision of the Northwest's rivers of old

ESS professor of geomorphology David Montgomery and alum Tim Abbe are quoted.

Read more at the Seattle Times

ESS in the Northwest Geological Society

The Northwest Geological Society meets most months for dinner talks. The November meeting included congratulations the Society founder, Eric Cheney upon his 80th birthday, and a talk by Brian Atwater that excerpted correspondence recently found by Thomas Ott in archives held by the Quaternary Research Center.

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