By Amy Cucinella
On-line Forty-Niner

A Cal State Long Beach geological sciences professor received a $20,000 grant from the National Geographic Society to study what she calls a hot topic in the geology field.
 
The grant, awarded to Maria Teresa Ramirez Herrera, assistant professor of geological sciences, will help fund research aimed at understanding the process of mountain formation in the Andes Mountains.
 
Ramirez will lead a research team, including faculty from UC Berkeley and the Universidad de San Juan, Argentina, to the Andes for a four-week field study either this summer or next winter break, she said.
 
Ramirez is immediately beginning the lab portion of her research and will soon hire a paid assistant to help her the next few months with map analysis and with the studying of satellite images, if she is able to acquire them, she said.  She also said she welcomes the help of volunteer geology students interested in the project.
 
“I always like to work with students,” Ramirez said. “This is a great opportunity for linking teaching with research. Students often develop their own minor research projects after assisting professors.”
 
To receive the grant, which is a highly competitive process, Ramirez had to write a detailed proposal of what she wanted to study and why it warranted the interest and funding of the National Geographic Society.
 
“This is a very important topic right now to scientists and to the general public,” Ramirez said.  “I think that is why National Geographic is interested in my project, because this topic concerns the general public.”
 
If scientists are able to better understand how landscape was formed in the past, then it helps them gain more insight into what is happening now and what might occur in the future, Ramirez said.
 
In addition, understanding the process of how the Andes formed will also be applicable to understanding mountain ranges everywhere, Ramirez said.  The research project should have its results by next spring, and the research will greatly benefit CSULB in many ways, Ramirez said.
 
“The name of Cal State gets to be in all the conferences and papers will be published so people will become aware of our school’s scientists,” Ramirez said. “Potential students might be attracted to study at CSULB because they’ve heard of and are interested in the research.”
 
The grant is also beneficial to the department of the geological sciences, said Stanley Finney, chairman of the department.
 
“It’s a wonderful stimulation for the entire faculty as well as for her,” Finney said.  “It’s not only great for her morale, but it adds to the atmosphere of the department and encourages faculty to continue to go out and seek external funding.”
 
The grant adds even more strength to CSULB’s reputation in the sciences. CSULB has been rated by the National Science Foundation as one of the top master’s level universities whose students go on to earn doctoral degrees in science and engineering, according to the organization’s Web site.
 
This standing is good news for Ramirez who plans to apply, upon completion of this project, for a larger grant from the NSF so that she can extend her research to different areas of the Andes as well as to the Southern Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico.
 
The National Geographic grant will help her get the results she needs to apply for a larger grant from the National Science Foundation, Ramirez said.

Calendar

Display Ads