Distinguished Thesis Award

The Distinguished Thesis Award is awarded to graduate students in the department whose MS thesis is well-conceived, presents an original contribution, and clearly communicates the scientific significance of the work.

See the recipients of this award below.

• 2022:
  Trent Adams; Detecting Impacts of Historic and Undocumented Landslide Tsunamis at High Latitude Sites Using NDVI.
• 2021:
  Alyssa DeMott; Long-Term Geomorphic Effects of the Glines Canyon Dam Removal on the Elwha River Washington, USA.
  Valerie Strasser; The Role of Cumulate Plagioclase Entrainment in the Steens Basalt, SE Oregon: Insights from the Magma Chamber Simulator.
• 2020:
  Elizabeth Curtiss; Documenting the Earthquake History of the Thousand Springs Fault in Summer Lake Basin, Oregon, USA
• 2019:
  Andrew Hoxey; Spatial and temporal characterization of the Petrified Springs Fault, Central Walker Lane, Nevada: documenting middle Miocene dextral slip.
• 2018:
  Conner Toth; Giant Plagioclase in the Steens Basalt, SE Oregon: Cumulate Entrainment Revealed by Textural and In Situ Chemical Analysis.
• 2017:
  David Hernandez Uribe; Estimating the Thickness of an Ultrahigh-Pressure (UHP) Terrane: Insights from Phase Equilibria Modelling and Zr-in-Rutile Thermometry, Dulan Area, North Qaidam Terrane, Northwest China.
  Dallin Jensen; Isotope investigation of nitrate in soils and agricultural drain waters of the Lower Yakima Valley, Washington.
  Ted Uecker; Post-wildfire black carbon deposition on the snowpack in the Cascade Range, Washington State: Temporal and spatial variability with implications for accelerated melt.
• 2016:
  Brian Ostrom; Hazard identification and coastal stratigraphy in Crescent Harbor and Dugualla Bay, northeast Whidbey Island.
• 2015:
  Brent Ritzinger; Paleomagnetic mapping of late Miocene-Pliocene basalt flows in the northwestern Basin and Range: determining structural and topographic controls on the distribution of volcanic activity.
  Kaitlyn Nelson; Constraining timing and source of alkali-enrichment at Mt. Etna, Sicily using in situ clinopyroxene data.
• 2014:
  Andy Menking; Black carbon measurements of snow and ice using the single particle soot photometer: method development and an AD 1852-1999 record of atmospheric black carbon from a Mount Logan ice core.
• 2013:
  Aaron Mayfield; Documenting compositional diversity in the Fossa delle Felci (Salina Island, South Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy): Integrating quantitative models and in situ chemical analyses.
• 2012:
  Jim Rinke; Surface Wave Inversion of the Upper Mantle Velocity Structure in the Ross Sea Region, Western Antarctica.
• 2011: not awarded
• 2010:
  Caitlin Orem; Lacustrine sediment record of multiple Quaternary lava dams on the Owyhee River, southeastern Oregon.
• 2009:
  Jackie Langille; Middle Crustal Ductile Deformation Patterns in southern Tibet: Insights from Vorticity Studies in Mabja Dome.