The Chair’s Message: Geo-Bing Newsletter 2025

As you know firsthand, our alumni network spans an impressive range of fields in academia, education, government and the private sector, where your geoscience training continues to shape conversations around energy, environment and sustainability. It’s both exciting and humbling to address such a diverse and accomplished community whose work continues to bring pride and inspiration to our department.

It has been a year of change and steady progress here in the Department. If you visited campus recently, you’ve likely seen that Science I, our longtime home, is in the midst of a major reconstruction. The process has not been without its challenges. Still, we’re looking forward to the outcome: a revitalized space that will better support teaching and research for years to come. And yes, there’s truth to the rumor: A Panera Bread will be opening in the building, which many of our current students and future alumni assure us will make all the disruptions worthwhile, as they will no longer have any reason to leave Science I during their time here.

Inside the department, we’ve been using this transitional period to update and strengthen our own facilities. Renovations are underway in several key spaces, including the flume teaching lab, the geophysics lab, the library and journal area, and our core research facility. Our seminar room has also been upgraded with a new projection and camera system that will soon allow us to broadcast departmental seminars and colloquia. We hope this will make it easier for alumni, no matter where you are, to reconnect and join our events virtually. We’re also adding a small but meaningful addition to our hallway: a display in front of the Geology Office featuring highlights from our geologic collections, a list of alumni award recipients, and personal artifacts belonging to Professor Glenn Bartle, Binghamton’s first president and a steadfast advocate for the geosciences.

While renovating physical spaces and celebrating our history, we are also preparing for the future through two ongoing faculty searches in hydrogeology and critical mineralogy. Both represent cornerstone areas of modern Earth Science and are essential to addressing global environmental and resource challenges. The hydrogeology position will strengthen our capacity to understand and manage groundwater systems, watershed dynamics, and the increasing pressures on clean water availability in a changing climate. The critical mineralogy position will expand our expertise in the materials that underpin renewable energy technologies, from battery metals to rare earth elements, connecting the department’s long tradition in mineral sciences with the urgent need for sustainable resource development. These searches come at a moment of transition, following the retirements of three long-serving colleagues: Peter Kneupfer, Joseph Graney and Thomas Kulp, whose teaching, mentorship and scholarship have left a lasting mark on our community and whose legacies will continue to guide our growth.

You may find it refreshing that in a time when much of education is shifting online, we remain deeply committed to the value of field learning. It’s in the field where understanding is built, cohorts are formed, and many of the most enduring memories of one’s time in Earth Sciences are made. Thanks to the Thomas Field Trip Endowment for local excursions and the Bartle Endowment for national and international travel, our students continue to learn geology in the most direct and meaningful way: by seeing and doing. To make this experience even more accessible, we’ve expanded our van fleet to three vehicles, already earning their mileage across the region’s outcrops, road cuts and (always safe) scenic overlooks.

It’s both humbling and gratifying to witness how the department continues to evolve, and to have the chance to address you not only as Chair, but as a fellow graduate who still remembers late nights in Science I, field trips in the rain, and the unmistakable smell of freshly cut rock in the thin section lab. While change is rarely simple, our department remains grounded in what makes it strong: curiosity, resilience, and a shared sense of purpose.

Please stay in touch, share your news, and join us for a seminar once our new system is up and running. We’d love to hear from you. If you visit campus, we would love to see you and, of course, share a cup of Friday Tea together.