22 Regents Professor Estella Atekwana’s work has opened a frontier in earth science research: biogeophysics. Her investigations of geomicrobiology — a combination of geology and microbiology — processes have helped pioneer the subdiscipline. Atekwana is studying the transformation of the Gulf of Mexico following the 2010 oil spill. Atekwana also has interests in tectonophysics with a focus to incipient continental rifting along the East African Rift System and extensional terranes in southwest Turkey. Like many endowed professors, Atekwana is sought after as a conference speaker and panelist. She has served on panels for the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health and the National Research Council of the National Academies Committee to Assess the Performance of Engineered Barriers. She is involved with the American Geophysical Union, the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists Foundation. She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in geology from Howard University. She earned a master’s from Howard and a doctorate in geophysics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Phil Shockley PORTRAIT “I have a project in the Gulf of Mexico looking at how bacteria are breaking down oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Understanding how they do that can make cleanups cheaper and more effective.” Estella Atekwana SUN COMPANY CLYDE WHEELER CHAIR IN HYDROGEOLOGY
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAxMjk=