2012 Lecturer
 James S. (Jay) Famiglietti has been selected as the 2012 Birdsall Dreiss Distinguished Lecturer. The lectureship is made to one person annually by the GSA Hydrogeology Division; Famiglietti is the 34rd GSA Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturer and is Professor in Earth System Science and Civil & Environmental Engineering and Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling.
His research group uses satellite remote sensing to track water availability and groundwater depletion on land, and has been working for many years towards improving hydrological prediction in regional and global weather and climate models.
He is offering two talks:
- Water cycle change and the human fingerprint on the water landscape of the 21st Century: Observations from a decade of GRACE (Click for abstract),
and
- A strategy for accelerating the development of hydrological models: Societal needs, observational requirements and public communication (Click for abstract)
At the request of interested institutions and pending availability, Jay will present one of the two lectures listed above.
A lecture request form is available here
.
Keep up on Jay's lectures at his blog.
Background of the Birdsall-Dreiss Lectureship
The Birdsall Lectureship began in 1978, as part of a bequest left to the Geological Society of America – Hydrogeology Division in memory of John Manning Birdsall. Mr. Birdsall was a prominent geologist, retired from the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey. He was a scientist, a dedicated public servant and a gentleman. The bequest was used to provide travel funds for outstanding scientists working in the field of hydrogeology to visit other institutions and give talks on their research. The first lecturer, Dr. Jacob Bear from the Israeli Institute of Technology, visited only the University of Wisconsin – Madison, which hosted one of the premier hydrogeology programs of that era. The subsequent list of Birdsall-Dreiss lecturers includes many outstanding scientists from academia and government. The number of institutions visited by each lecturer grew rapidly, with recent lecturers typically giving 40 to 50 talks, mainly in the U.S. and Canada, but also in Europe, Asia and Australia.
One of the most popular Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturers was Dr. Shirley Dreiss from the University of California – Santa Cruz. Shortly after her very successful 1992 lecture tour, Shirley was killed in an auto accident. Her many friends and admirers honored her by contributing to the GSA Birdsall Lectureship, which was renamed the Birdsall-Dreiss Lectureship. The Birdsall-Dreiss Lecturer is chosen each year by a panel of former B-D lecturers. There are no applications for this position and they make their choice solely on the reputation of perspective candidates for their research excellence and ability to communicate.
The Birdsall-Dreiss endowment pays for part of their travel and candidates typically obtain additional travel funds from their home institution. Universities or other institutions wishing to host a Birdsall-Dreiss lecture send in their application in the fall, with the tour officially starting each January and ending at the fall meeting of the Geological Society of America.
Previous Lectures
Click here to query the Birdsall-Dreiss Lectures Data Base. The data base includes year, lecturer, employer, and abstract title(s). |
