University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences petrologist George Bergantz is one of two 2021 recipients of the Norman L. Bowen Award and Lecture from the American Geophysical Union, a named lectureship which the organization presents annually to one or more mid-career or senior scientists in recognition of outstanding contributions to the fields of volcanology, geochemistry and petrology.

The award reflects Bergantz’s innovative scientific contributions on the physics of magmas, hydrothermal systems, metamorphism, and eruption processes. As a member of the physical petrology group at UW, Bergantz studies the transport of magma in the Earth’s deep crust and mantle, as well as the life cycles of volcanic systems.

Bergantz earned his bachelor’s in geological engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, his master’s in geophysical sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and his doctorate in Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University before joining the UW faculty in 1988. He has done extensive field studies in Italy, Greece, Chile and Argentina, among other places, and is an elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America.

Bergantz will present the Bowen Lecture in December at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting, to be held this year as a hybrid event based in New Orleans.

Also of note is UW Earth and Space Sciences alumna Brooke Medley, now of the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, who will receive the AGU’s Cryosphere Early Career Award.