Dr. Bernard W. Pipkin is Professor Emeritus at the University of Southern California. He received his doctorate from the University of Arizona and is a licensed geologist and certified engineering geologist in the state of California. After graduation he worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a variety of military and civil projects, from large dams to pioneer roads in rough terrain for microwave sites. He has been a consulting engineering geologist as well as a university teacher since 1965. Dr. Pipkin is past president of the National Association of Geology Teachers and is a Fellow in the Geological Society of America. He hosted the PBS 30-part program Oceanus that won a local… Emmy for Best Educational Television Series. In 1995 he shared the Clare Holdredge Award with Richard Proctor from the Association of Engineering Geologists for their book ENGINEERING GEOLOGY PRACTICE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. He currently lectures on geology on cruise ships and at last count, he and his wife Faye have been involved in 26 cruises throughout the world. Dr. Pipkin is a private pilot with a flight instructor's rating; he took many of the aerial photos in the book. They have three grown children and five grandchildren and live south of Los Angeles on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
Dr. D.D. "Dee" Trent has been working at, or teaching, geology since 1955. After graduating from college he worked in the petroleum industry where his geologic skills were sharpened with projects in Utah, Arizona, California, and Alaska. When the company decided to send him to Libya he decided it was time to become a college geology teacher. He has taught for 28 years at Citrus Community College in Glendora, California, and along the way has worked for the National Park Service, done field research on glaciers in Alaska and California, visited numerous mines in the United States and Germany, picked up a Ph. D. from the University of Arizona, appeared in several episodes of the PBS… telecourse, The Earth Revealed, and served as an adjunct faulty member at the University of Southern California, where he taught field geology. He and his wife raised two children in Claremont, California and when not involved with geology he's either skiing or playing banjo in a dixieland band.
Richard W. Hazlett is the winner of 1996 and 2001 Wig Awards for teaching excellence at Pomona College. He is the first Stephen M. Pauley Chair in Environmental Analysis at the college, receiving this appointment in 2001. His main research interests involve volcanic stratigraphy, igneous petrology and resources, but most recently has been exploring land use issues focusing on the American West. Dr. Hazlett styles himself as transitioning from hard-core geology to environmental studies with a land use/natural resource emphasis. He is a co-author with Bernard Pipkin and Dee D. Trent on GEOLOGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT and the script author of the EARTH REVEALED telecourse series.
Paul Bierman is a Professor of Geology and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. Now in his 14th year at UVM, Paul's areas of expertise include understanding how humans and landscapes interact using the fields of hydrology, chemistry, and geomorphology. He is particularly interested in the impact of humans on the built and natural landscape as well as science education at all levels. Paul teaches a variety of courses including Earth Hazards, Geohydrology, and Geomorphology. He has a BA degree from Williams College and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington. Research interests include the rate of bedrock weathering involves field work in such locations as central Australia and… the Canadian arctic. Bierman directs UVM's Cosmogenic Nuclide Extraction Lab -- one of only a handful of laboratories in the country dedicated to the preparation of samples for analysis of 10-Be and 26-Al from pure quartz. He manages the Landscape Change Program, an NSF-supported digital archive of historic Vermont Landscape images used for teaching and research, available at uvm.edu/landscape. Paul's research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Geographic Society, and the U.S. Army. In 1996, Paul was awarded the Donath medal as the outstanding young scientist of the year by the Geological Society of America; he has since received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation specifically for integrating scientific education and research. In 2005, Paul was awarded the NSF Distinguished Teaching Scholar award in recognition of his on-going attempts to integrate these two strands of his academic life. Together, Paul, his graduate and undergraduate students, and collaborators have 50 publications in refereed journals and books.