Geo Department Leadership Transition

After completing exactly 25 years at USU, including serving for the last eight years as Department Head of Geosciences, Joel Pederson has left USU. Joel considers himself lucky to have been offered a job in Logan back when he was a finishing graduate student, and he recognizes and treasures how special the department community has been. Highlights have been working with 21 graduate students to complete their programs, building the Luminescence Lab with Dr. Tammy Rittenour, witnessing the blossoming of alumni giving, expanding our faculty, and hiring new folks to take us bravely into the future. Starting this fall of 2024, Joel will take on the position of Department Head in Colorado State University’s Department of Geosciences. Same job – just one state over.

College of Science Dean Michelle Baker has made the exciting announcement that Professor Dennis Newell will serve as Interim Department Head starting this 2024-2025 academic year. Dennis has been in our department for over 11 years, since January 2013. He is primed to take on this new challenge, even as his research program employing geochemistry to answer questions in tectonics is still going full steam. It will be an exiting new academic year, with all of our new faculty and new roles for many. USU Geo is larger, more connected, more inclusive, and better poised than ever to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing world!