South Dakota Section, American
Institute of Professional Geologists 2023 J.P. Gries Geologist of the Year Dr.
Nuri Uzunlar accepts his award on August 29, 2023, from
Dr. Colin Paterson, Nuri's dissertation advisor and 2014 winner of the same
award. Photo
taken by Tom Durkin.
2023 J.P. Gries Geologist of the Year award announced
The South Dakota section of the American Institute of Professional Geologists
(SD-AIPG) has named Dr. Nuri Uzunlar as the 2023 J.P. Gries Geologist of the Year.
The award is named in honor of Dr. John Paul Gries for his exceptional work in
the field of geology and is provided each year by the South Dakota Section of
AIPG in memory of Dr. Gries, a longtime geology professor at the South Dakota
School of Mines and Technology. Dr. Uzunlar's nomination letter by Mr. Tom
Durkin and Dr. J.
Foster Sawyer included the
following:
It is our pleasure to recommend Dr. Nuri Uzunlar for AIPG’s South Dakota Section 2023 J.P. Gries Geologist of the Year award.
Born and raised in Trabzon, Turkey, Nuri emigrated to the United States after graduating with honors from Black Sea University in Turkey with his B.S. degree in Geology and Geological Engineering. Nuri began graduate school at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology under the mentorship and lifelong friendship of the late Dr. Alvis Lisenbee. He went on to obtain his Ph.D. in Geology in 1993 under the advisement of Dr. Colin Paterson. Nuri also became a U.S. citizen.
While a graduate student at SD Mines, Nuri worked as a Research Assistant in the mid-1980s. He consulted, off-and-on, from 1987 to 2001 with several gold exploration companies in the Black Hills and around the world, including Goldstake Explorations, Golden Reward Mining Company, Cominco Resources International, Corona Corporation, Anglo American Corporation, and Energy Fuels Corporation. His outstanding skills in international relations resulted in establishing company field offices in over ten countries. He has authored and coauthored about 50 publications and professional presentations. He is a member of six geoscience professional organizations.
In 2001, Dr. Uzunlar began working at SD Mines with the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering as a Research Scientist and Instructor / Field Camp Coordinator for the Black Hills Natural Sciences Field Station (i.e., Geology Field Camp). In 2006, Nuri was elevated to Associate Professor status and took over the position of Director of the Field Station, a role that he has maintained until the present.
Dr. Uzunlar has built the Black Hills Natural Sciences Field Station at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology into the largest Geology Field Camp program offered by any single university in the world. Besides the field camps in the United States (in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Death Valley and western California, Utah, Arizona, Montana, and Hawaii), Nuri has established field camps in Turkey, Spain, France, Iceland, Ecuador, Morocco, Nepal, and New Zealand, as depicted on the map below. These geology field camps have become renowned among university geoscience faculty and students serious about geology. Thousands of students from around the world have enrolled in, and benefited from, Dr. Uzunlar’s camps.
The establishment of this unique, worldwide offering of such a diversity of geologic environments, is testimony to Nuri’s immense dedication to the teaching of “field” geology and geologic mapping and interpretation, a skill that is lacking in many modern geoscience programs. We can’t think of a more deserving person for the 2023 J.P. Gries Geologist of the Year Award than Dr. Nuri Uzunlar.
Previous J.P. Gries award recipients include Tom Durkin with the South Dakota Space Grant Consortium, Gary Haag with the United States Forest Service; Richard Hammond with Heine Electric and Irrigation; Dr. Rachel Benton with Badlands National Park; South Dakota School of Mines & Technology professors Dr. Arden Davis, Dr. Colin Paterson, Dr. Edward Duke, Dr. Perry Rahn, Dr. Jack Redden, Dr. Alvis Lisenbee, Dr. James Fox, and Dr. J. Foster Sawyer; Mark Anderson and Janet Carter with the United States Geological Survey; and South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources geologists Dr. Mark Fahrenbach, Fred Steece, and Derric Iles.
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