St. Paul, Minn.Alan Chapman, Assistant Professor of Geology, has been awarded a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant totaling $511,548 to support his research titled, “Shallow angle subduction and tectonic underplating of magmatic arc root zones: a recipe for high-flux magmatism?”

As the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of early-career faculty, the CAREER grant recognizes teacher-scholars who undertake outstanding research, are committed to excellence in education, and will be leaders in integrating education and research.

Chapman’s research focuses on the recycling of the continental crust at convergent margins. According to Chapman, “these processes are important to improving our understanding of the long-term stability of the Earth’s crust and its potential to produce massive amounts of continental crust in short amounts of time.”

Over the five-year period of the grant, Chapman will lead teams of first-year students and post-baccalaureate researchers exploring the process of shallow subduction. His fieldwork will take place at sites where subduction-related rocks underlie volcanic-plutonic materials: the Klamath Mountains (northern California-southern Oregon), Big Sur (central California), and islands on the Pacific Ocean side of Baja California (Mexico).

From the perspective of his educational goals Chapman explained that, “in the long term I am centered on cultivating a fundamental understanding of geological phenomena within my students, raising my students’ comfort levels with the scientific method, and exposing them to a variety of career paths in the geosciences with the hope that these efforts will translate to a more informed society and greater number of employed geoscientists.”

Chapman’s work through the CAREER grant will also seek to increase the diversity of undergraduate students engaging in and pursuing geoscientific research and raise awareness of STEM career opportunities among college first-year students, and in particular, underrepresented populations.

To learn more visit macalester.edu

July 1 2019

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