UMD Earth & Environmental Sciences 2020 Annual Spring Awards Banquet
Hey y'all welcome to the Earth &
Environmental Sciences banquet of 2020
We are excited to share this new experience with you. My name is Emily Michelson and
my name is Heidi Krauss, and we are the
co-presidents of the Earth Science Club
this year. Take it away Karen!
Well hello and thank you
so much Heidi and Emily for welcoming
everybody here and on behalf of the
Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences at UMD, I want to welcome
everyone to our annual
departmental awards ceremony. I'm
Professor Karen Gran, the current
department head, and I'm here with
Professors John Goodge and Christina
Gallup tonight and although we can't get
together in person this year for Italian
food to celebrate our students'
accomplishments, I'm so glad you're
joining us now, remotely. We'll be giving
out our student scholarships and awards,
congratulating the recipients, giving
them a chance to introduce themselves a
little bit, and as always thanking the
friends of the department who have
donated generously to help make these
scholarships and awards possible. But
before we get to the awards we're going
to make a brief visit to somewhere that
despite all of its quirks
we all miss a lot right now our beloved
Heller Hall.
Hi everyone its KristinaGallup and my dog tank and we've just arrived at UMD at Heller Hall. There it
is to take a little tour of what campus
is like with nobody here.
[acoustic guitar music playing]
Hi I'm John Goodge, Professor of Geology
at UMD, and it's my great honor and
pleasure to introduce the awardees of
our academic scholarships for 2020
and 2021 and let's get started!
In our new virtual banquet mode, I'll
introduce the awards and the sponsors,
announce the award recipients and then
let them say a few words of thanks
through some short video clips that they've recorded.
Our first set of awards
is sponsored by a great friend to the
department Terry Swor, who you see
pictured here.
Terry is a geology alum from 1966 who
has given generously to the department
over many years and has even hired
several UMD geology majors of a younger
generation to work at his company, 
American Engineering Testing.Terry was
inducted into the Swenson College of
Science and Engineering Academy of
Science and Engineering
in 2012. Terry established the Jill and
Terry Swor scholarship in memory of his
late wife Jill. Terry and Jill are
passionate supporters of education and
giving back to the UMD community and for
that we're very grateful.
The Swor scholarship provides
significant financial aid to current
geology students. The generous Swor
scholarship is able to provide financial
assistance to four students next year.
Awardees of the Jill and Terry Swor
scholarship for 2020/2021
in Geology and Environmental Science are
Peter Book, Ian McNicholes, Rayann Rehwinkle
and Keegan White. Here's a few
words from each of them.
Hi, I'm Peter Book and I'm a junior in
the geological science program. I'm proud
to be this year's recipients of the Jill
and Terry Swor scholarship. College so
far hasn't been easy, but along the whole
way I've had teachers and faculty at UMD
who have made sure to help me achieve my dreams and I am incredibly honored to
add Mr. Swor to the long list of people
who have gone out of their way to make
my dreams a reality.
My name is Ian McNichols. I'm a sophomore environmental
science major with a minor in
environmental engineering. My career
aspirations are to work in carbon
capture in order to develop and
implement technologies to absorb
anthropogenic carbon emissions and to
mitigate the effects of climate change.
I'm extremely thankful to Jill and Terry Swor
for their contributions to my
education and I hope to continue to gain
the knowledge and the skills to make
effective change.
Hi, my name is Rayann Rehwinkle. I'm currently a sophomore at UMD. My majors are geology and chemistry.
Right now I'm in the beginning 
stages of working with Dr. Fred Davis
for research on the chemistry mantle and
i just want to say thank you to all the donors who
made that possible.
Hi, my name is Keegan White and I'm in my fourth year at UMD. I'm majoring in geology.
Some of my interests include
hiking, exploring and I like being outside
up here on the North Shore. All my
plans for after graduation are to look for
jobs over in Europe and move over there
because that's something I've been interested in doing
for a while now. And lastly, I would just
like to say thank you to all the donors
for their great generosity and for just allowing all of this to happen for us.
John Goodge: Great! Well thank you all and
congratulations to our Swor award
winners for next year.
The next award is
for a scholarship recently established
by Professor John Pastor recently
retired from the UMD Biology Department.
For many years John and Howard Mooers
have been active in supporting the
natural history minor in our college and
co-taught classes with students mainly
from our department, of course, and Biology. John and his wife Mary established the
Natural History Scholarship given to a
student with a strong interest in
natural history and to someone they
encouraged to consider a possible career path in a natural history field.
This year the award winner is Isabel Lukenbill.
And here is a message from Isabel.
Hi, my name is Isabel Lukenbill and
I will be a sophomore at UMD in the fall.
I'm studying environmental science and
after graduation planning on applying
for a service with the Peace Corps and a
career in conservation.
I love UMD because although the school
is large, the Earth and Environmental
Science Department offers a close-knit
community. Thank you to the donors!
John Goodge: Thank you Isabel. The next award is the Peterson Memorial Scholarship this is an
award that comes from a scholarship fund
that supports science and engineering
students in the Swenson College of
Science and Engineering broadly.
The Peterson memorial scholarship was
established through the estate of the
late Paula M. Tabler in loving memory of
her parents
Hazel Meyer Peterson and Paul Arthur
Peterson. Their generosity assists a
broad range of worthy students in
various fields. This year in our
department the award is given to Micaela
Buda.
Hi. My name is Micaela and I'm a junior
environmental science major with plans
to graduate in May of 2021. This
scholarship means the world to me
because it will allow me to focus more
on building my skillset as a scientist
and ultimately get outside more, learn
about the landscape and learn even more
about the field of environmental science.
John Goodge: That's great thank you Micaela.
Another scholarship comes to us from the late Kenneth Differt who generously
established a permanent endowment in
support of STEM students at UMD. Through
his generosity the Kenneth E. Differt
fund generates annual scholarships to
worthy students majoring in the areas of
mathematics and sciences and includes
our department as well. Awards in our
department alternate between geology and
environmental sciences and this year the
award goes to a geology student
Emily Wojtowicz and here's a short message from Emily.
Hi my name is Emily I am now
a fourth year geology student with a
heavy interest in planetary geology.
I just want to take some time to express my extreme gratitude to the donors. Thank
you so much. This really means a lot to
us. Thank you, have a good night.
John Goodge: Great thanks Emily.
Our department is extremely fortunate to be supported by gifts from
many donors over a number of years but
we continue to receive new support as well.
In just 2019, James Gearns
established the Gearns Family
Scholarship. James is an alum of UMD who had a minor in earth sciences and he
wishes to honor the many connections he
and his family have had with UMD.
Lesson learned, it's never too late to give back to the University.
This brand-new scholarship is awarded to earth environmental science and civil
engineering students on a rotating basis
and this year the award goes to a
student in earth and environmental sciences.
It's the first time award this year and it's
given to Sarah Gutzwiller from our
department. Sarah will be appearing a
little bit later in the program and we'll
play a video from her then. But want to
congratulate her on this award.
Another longtime friend to the department is Randy Koski who graduated with a BS in
geology in 1968. He went on to grad
school at Stanford where he completed
his PhD and worked at the USGS for
nearly 40 years specializing in
resources and marine geology. Randy was
inducted into the Swenson College of
Science and Engineering Academy of
Science and Engineering in 2011.
The Nancy E. Koski scholarship is
given in memory of his
late wife Nancy to support
female students in environmental sciences.
This year the award is given to
Marcie Peeters. Here's a few words from Marcie.
Hi! I'm Marcie Peters and I'm going to
be a senior this fall studying
environmental science. I hope to enter
a career in forestry after graduation.
I really enjoy working hands-on in the
field and labs especially with my
professors who are all extremely
passionate about their work. I hope you
all are safe and well and thank you for
this award.
John Goodge: The Estwing company is a tool
manufacturer in Illinois who makes hand
tools for all sorts of trades and home
do-it-yourselfers. You may be familiar
seeing some of their tools at your local
Home Depot or Menards and for many
years they have been the standard for
all manner of geology field tools
including hammers, chisels, pry bars and
even gold pans. Each year our department
is sent a rock hammer from Estwing who
generously provides a hammer that we can
award to a deserving, budding, young
geologist. Our awardees each year are top
students in the mineralogy and petrology
sequence and this year's Estwing award
is given to Katie Feil.
Here's a thank you message from Katie.
Hi I'm Katie Feil. I'm a second-year
geology major, environmental science
minor and I am very thankful for all the
staff and faculty and donors for helping
this banquet go on this year. Thank you
so much for the Millennium Tools of the
Trade Award and the Estwing Hammer Award. I'm very excited to try out my new
Estwing hammer.
Thank you very much.
John Goodge: That's great Katie. Enjoy your new hammer,  just be careful, they can be dangerous!
The next award is the Millennium Tools of
the Trade award. This is the last of this
set and there are several of those to be
given this year. Our tools of the trade
awards allow current and geology
students to buy some of the field
equipment that they use on class field
trips, at field camp and then onto future
careers in a geology related field
perhaps. On top of other college expenses
geology equipment can be an extra burden
so it's great to provide for this extra
need. And who doesn't like to buy fun
geology stuff? One of our most generous
alums Bill Crain understands this basic
need. Bill got his geology degree at UMD
in 1955 and went on to a long and
illustrious career in the petroleum
industry. His accomplishments and work
locations are many and Bill retired from
Chevron Oil Company as Corporate
Director and Vice President of Worldwide
Exploration and Production. Bill was
inducted to the Swenson College of
Science and Engineering Academy of
Science and Engineering in 2002, one of our first recipients.
Bill established the New Millennium Fund to support activities of geology students at UMD in
many different areas including travel,
field camp support and research. One of
the awards provided by the New
Millennium Fund is the Tools of the
Trade, and this award gives $400 to each
of four students to allow them to buy
some field geology kit. This year's
awardees are Katie Feil, Christine Hafdahl
Kjersten Jones and Donovan Miles who you see pictured here.
We already heard from Katie we also got a couple of brief messages from Christine
and Kjersten and here we'll hear from them.
Hello everyone, my name is Christine Hafdahl
I will be a junior this coming year, studying for my bachelor's in geological sciences.
Some of my interests include running, rock climbing and slack lining.
What I enjoy most about geology is the hands-on fieldwork and being able to work outside.
After graduation I hope to find a job out west and eventually go to grad school for my master's.
I'd like to thank the donors for your great generosity. It is such an honor to be receiving this award
John Goodge: Great! Thank you Christine and next we'll hear from K.J.
Hello! My name is Kjersten Jones and
I'm a third year student majoring in
geological sciences. What I love about
geology is the history. I love learning
about deep time and how and why rocks
formed. This is why I loved petrology and
mineralogy. Thank you so much for
awarding me the Millennium Tools of the
Trade Award. I look forward to continuing
my education with your support.
John Goodge: Great thank you for those messages. Next up are our outstanding student awards to be
presented by Professor Christina Gallup.
In the meantime, I'll sign off here and
just offer again my congratulations to
all of the award recipients in our
program this year.
Hi it's Christina Gallup again. I am
on a beach in the Bahamas where
some of you were with me this past January.
I miss it so much.
Today, I'm here to present the
outstanding student awards.
The first award is the Marsden Outstanding Geology Graduate Student. Ralph Marsden was a truly
remarkable geologist who finished his PhD at University of Wisconsin in 1939. He was
chief of the geological survey division
of the Bureau of Mines
before moving on to the steel industry,
rising to head of iron ore operations
for U.S. steel in 1964. Amazingly, UMD
wooed him away from industry in 1967.
He was head of the department for seven
years before retiring in 1980. He was one
of the most knowledgeable iron men in
the world but he had a broad perspective
and a great love of geology. His family
created the Ralph and Ellen Marsden
Scholarship Fund to support student
scholarship and needs.
This year's Marsden Outstanding Geology
Graduate Student is Andrew Regula.
Andrew is an outstanding student who worked with Fred Davis on a master's titled
"Experimentally generated partition
coefficients for first row transition
elements during peroxinite partial
melting at 3 Giga Pascal's."
Andrew is an inquisitive, bright student
was a pleasure to have in class.
His love of geology would make Ralph
Marsden proud. Here he is to accept his award.
Hi, my name is Andrew Regula. I just finished
a master's thesis with Dr. Fred Davis
this last year. My interests are
primarily in solid earth geochemistry and
using experimental methods to probe the
composition of Earth's interior and
study its evolution through time.
I just finished a masters with Fred and I'm
now pursuing my PhD at the University of
Chicago with a focus in in this area and
continuing to deepen my knowledge there.
Thank you very much to the donors to
the department for their generosity. Thanks.
The Randy Seeling Outstanding Graduate
Teaching Assistant award is named after
Randy Seeling who received his master's
at UMD in 1977 and was an outstanding
student and TA. He got a job after graduating in the
exploration field in Alaska. Tragically,
while on a two-week vacation in Europe
in 1979 he was hit by a bus in Germany.
His family created this award in his honor.
We have many outstanding TAs in our
department and was really difficult to
choose which to select for this award.
Sam TA'd mineralogy, petrology, and
structural geology. Nick TA'd
geophysics and our liberal education earth
system science course and was a grader
in several courses. Both of these
outstanding TAs are known for their
ability to teach with kindness and
patience and we're grateful to them for
strengthening our programs. Here they are
to accept their awards.
Hello! My name is Sam Duncanson
I'm a second year masters student here
at UMD getting a degree in geological
sciences.
I want to thank Randy Seeling for
supporting the graduate teaching
assistantship award. Earth science means
a lot to me both personally and
professionally and it's been really exciting getting to
share that enthusiasm with students the
past couple years. So, thank you very much.
Hi, I'm Nick Budde, I'm a second year masters student in the geology program.
I'm just finishing up my research project on the hydrology of calcareous pens in
northwestern Minnesota the spring and
I'll be moving on to a job as a
groundwater scientist with the North
Dakota Department of Environmental
Quality this summer. I'd like to thank the
department and all you donors for all
your help along the way.
Christina Gallup: Barr Engineering sponsors our Outstanding Junior and Senior awards in our geology
and environmental science program. Barr
Engineering is a Minnesota company with
clients across North America and around
the world they help clients develop,
manage, process, and restore natural
resources and they've hired many of our
graduates over the years.
Heidi Krauss is our Outstanding Junior in
the geology program this year.
Heidi is an excellent student who's
active in the department including
representing the geology majors at our
faculty meetings. Here she is to accept
her award.
Hi, my name is Heidi Krauss and I received
the Barr Engineering Outstanding Junior
Award. I just finished my junior year
here at UMD majoring in geology.
Thank you so much to Barr engineering for this scholarship. After I graduate, I plan on
attending graduate school studying
geophysics.
Christina Gallup:Morena Hammer is our Outstanding Senior in the geology program this year.
Morena is an outstanding student who arrived at UMD having finished her associate's
degree through PSEO in high school. She
did a UROP project with Howard Mooers
mapping karst in southern England using
Google Earth. Here she is to accept her award.
Hi, I'm Morena Hammer, I'm a senior and
majoring in geological sciences. I'm
interested in natural hazards and will
be attending Portland State University
this fall for their Master of Science
program to study landslide climatic and
seismic triggers. I would like to thank
Barr engineering and the donors for
their generosity towards the
scholarships that I'll be receiving for
this summer's field camp.
Christina Gallup: Sarah Gutzwiller is the Outstanding Junior in the environmental science program.
Sarah is an environmental science major
with a chemistry minor. She is a
straight A student and one of the most
organized people I have ever met.
Here she is to accept.
Hi, my name is Sarah Gutzwiller. I'm
going to be a junior this coming fall
and I'm majoring in environmental
science. My favorite part about taking
coursework here at UMD are the outdoor
labs. Duluth and the surrounding area has
a rich geologic history that allows us
to get a hands-on experience working
with various concepts right in our own
backyard. I want to thank all of the
donors for their support in my education,
thank you for making a difference.
Sam Nesheim is our Outstanding Senior
in the environmental science program.
Sam is double majoring in environmental
science in the environment and
sustainability program in the
College of Liberal Arts. As if that
wasn't enough, he is minoring in biology
and geographic information systems as well.
Sam took coral-reef field studies in the
Bahamas with me and Paul Bates in
Biology this past January.
He's bright inquisitive humble just a
terrific person. He did an internship
with the MPCA this last summer, is doing
research with John Swenson on the role
of deep groundwater input on the North
Shore trout streams.
Here he is to accept his award.
Hi, my name is Sam Nesheim and I'm
currently in my third year here at UMD
majoring in environmental science. After
graduation, I plan on attending graduate
school where I want to obtain my masters
in some kind of water related science
field. I would like to say thank you to
the donors for making this opportunity available for us.
Christina Gallup: And now I'll turn it
over to Karen for the field camp awards.
Karen Gran: Thank you so much Christina and now back to me for the geology Field Camp Awards.
Now field camp is the capstone experience
for our geological sciences majors.
Students spend six weeks in the field
applying what they have learned
throughout their undergraduate careers
at UMD. Many of our students attend the
Wasatch-Uinta field camp in Park City,
Utah where students from UMD have
learned field mapping skills for over 50
years.
Although the Wasatch-Uinta field camp
is still running this summer,
like everything else we are being forced
to run field camp remotely, which is a
significant challenge. Even though
students won't be able to map the same
rocks or experience the same food as
many of our alums have, they're still
incurring costs to attend the summer
course and we're extremely grateful to
the generosity of our alumni to help
them with their field camp expenses.
The first field camp scholarship we will
award is the Steven Brand Field Camp
Scholarship. Steven Brand graduated from
the department in 1971. He went on to get
a masters and a PhD at Purdue.
He began his career with Phillips
Petroleum in 1976 as a geologist for
exploration and production and
eventually became the Vice President for
Exploration and Business at ConocoPhillips.
The Brand Field Camp
Scholarship provides full coverage for
field camp for one of our top students.
This year the Brand Field Camp
Scholarship goes to Emily Wojtowicz.
Congratulations Emily.
We have many other field camps
scholarship funds, which is wonderful as
they really help with the expenses for
our students. This year, the field camp
scholarship funds came from the Charlie
Matsch Fund, the Lempe and John W. Pagnucco Fund,
the Rip Rapp Fund, the Robert
Heller fund, the Ralph Marsden fund and
the new Millennium Field Camp Fund. I
want to start by saying a few words
about Charlie Matsch. Charlie was a
professor in the department from 1970 to
2001, specializing in glacial geology and
geomorphology Charlie also spent many,
many summers instructing students at the
Wasatch-Uinta field camp in Utah.
He calculated at one point he'd spent
over a year, maybe even a year and a half
of his life, living in the Chateau Apres in Park City.
This fund was established in honor
of his retirement so thank you so much Charlie.
The Lempe and John Pagnucco fund was
established by Lempe Pagnucco to
provide scholarships to geology or
mineralogy students at UMD and to assist
students wishing to attend geology field camp.
Lempe and John were avid mineral
collectors and a small part of their
collection is actually displayed still,
on the first floor of Heller Hall.
So, many thanks to Lempe and John Pagnucco.
The Rip Rapp fund - Rip Rapp was the Dean the College of Arts and Sciences and
then the College of Science and
Engineering at UMD from 1975 to 1989
before returning to the faculty to
teach geo-archaeology and a really
popular course on dinosaurs. He became
a Regents Professor in 1995, which is one
of the highest honors that the
University of Minnesota bestows upon its
professors. He retired in 2003. The Robert
L. Heller Fund was named after Bob Heller
who founded the Geology Department at
UMD and eventually moved on from the
Geology Department to become the
Chancellor of UMD. In addition to the
scholarships we heard about earlier,
Ralph Marsden and Bill Crain, also
contributed funds to help students
attend field camp through the Marsden
Field Camp Fund and the New Millennium Fund.
This year, the combined donations
for field camp scholarships is
thirty-five thousand three hundred
dollars, which made it possible for us to
fully cover the costs for all of our students
attending field camp, for which we are
extremely grateful. And finally here are
the field camp scholarship recipients
this year: Brett Bjergo, Hanna Burgstaler,
Logan Carpenter, Derek Dahly, Morena Hammer, Carson Kaiser, Heidi Krauss,
Donovan Miles, Daniel Stolze, David Wallington and Keegan White.
Congratulations to all of
you. I look forward to seeing many of you
at the Wasatch-Uinta field camp this
summer. And finally, last but not least, we
have our graduating seniors and I want
to congratulate each and every one of
them. Many have just completed their
classes while others will graduate at
the end of the field camp this summer or
in the fall. This was not the end to your
college career that any of us could have
foreseen. At UMD, we take great pride in
our programs, faculty and our students. We
also take pride in the community that we
live in and recognize how fortunate we
are to be able to teach and learn about
geology and the environment in such an
incredible location. It's hard to have
this taken away so quickly. So
congratulations to all of you for
persevering for the last few weeks and
more importantly, congratulations to all
of you for all of your accomplishments
at UMD. You should be very proud of yourselves.
On behalf of the Department
of Earth and environmental sciences congratulations to the class of 2020!
Everyone cheering: Woot woot! Yay! You're Awesome! Yay! Good Job!
Congratulations to all of our
scholarship recipients this year.
And congratulations to the 2020 graduates!
Thank you very much for joining. This is our year - we got this!
[music starts]
