Frank Hall---
New Geoscience
Educator
Frank Hall with Norma Felton, his co-director in their successful
LaSIP proposal for working with high-school science teachers.
Frank Hall joined our Departmental faculty this year from the College of
Marine Studies, University of Delaware. Frank's doctoral degree is in
Oceanography from the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode
Island (1991). Frank was hired to fill a new position focused on a need
recognized statewide---faculty within science departments who specialize
in science education. As most of you know, Bill Craig has been a national
leader in geoscience education. The addition of Frank puts our Department
on the forefront of the field.
Frank has been and will be developing courses in science content for
undergraduate education majors. The focus of the courses is upon hands-on
learning. The goal is to improve elementary and high-school
sceince education, thus increasing science literacy and attracting more
students into the sciences.
Denise Reed---
Strengthening the
Coastal Geology
Program
Denise Reed doing field work on East Timbalier Island.
This fall our coastal research program made a major leap forward with the
addition of Denise Reed, formerly of the Louisiana Universities Marine
Consortium. Denise was raised and educated in England where she studied
for B.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Cambridge in the
Department of Geography. Her Ph.D. research was on sediment dynamics of
marshes just north of the Thames estuary, an area where marshes have been
drained for centuries and used as agricultural land---the landscape is
flat, just like coastal Louisiana.
Denise came to Louisiana in 1986 to
work at the LUMCON lab in Cocodrie. Most of her work since then has been
on aspects of the Louisiana coastal land-loss problem, but she also has
conducted research around the southeastern U.S. as well as in California,
Oregon and Washington. Denise will be teaching courses related to
geomorphological and sedimentological processes.
Other Staff Changes
Janina K. Rafalska left the Department in the summer of 1997 to take a
position with Amoco in Houston. In the front office, we have a new face,
secretary Katrina Beamon.