John Ackerman ‘75
Ackerman was named the 2018 Engineer of the Year by the Lehigh Valley Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the 2018 Engineer of the Year by the Keystone Northeast Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Engineers. He also received U.S. Patent #10,071,918: “Water Harvester and Purification System.”
James H. Anspach, PG (r) ‘77
Anspach was elected as a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers “for his exemplary thirty-eight-year career as a practitioner, educator, and researcher.” He has worked for the benefit of the public and the engineering profession by fostering a dynamic evolution of the industry for the practice of subsurface utility engineering and the utility damage prevention profession.
Mildred Barylski ‘77
After graduation, Barylski went to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and received her M.S. in geology in 1980, focusing on vertebrate paleontology. She worked for two years at the Pratt Museum of Natural History now named the Beneski Museum of Natural History, Amherst College, in the fossil collection and then moved to Virginia in 1982 to work at the Smithsonian Institution.
Charles Boyer ‘76
Boyer was elected for a three-year term on the board of directors of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers. He is currently a scientific adviser on unconventional reservoirs for Schlumberger, an international oilfield services company.
George Bureau ‘80
Bureau was recently promoted to vice president consulting services for Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership based in Madison, Wisconsin.
Greg Collins ‘13
Collins continued his education at the University of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. in education policy and is now employed at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education where he is investigating the relationship between teacher preparation pathways and
STEM teacher attrition.
Martin Farley ’80 ‘87
Farley received the 2019 Distinguished Service Award from AASP – The Palynological Society, which promotes all aspects of palynology in academia and industry.
Jim Gearhart ‘77
Gearhart has been retired from the water-resources discipline of the USGS for nine years and is enjoying mentoring seniors in the Earth & Environment Department at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; researching and writing articles and a blog on local history; and spending time with his family at a vacation house in Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. He says “hi” to all his alumni friends.
Mark Hainsey ‘83
Hainsey was recently named the chief knowledge officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, D.C. Daniel Hummer ‘10
Hummer finished his third year as a faculty member at Southern Illinois University. He continues to collaborate on both the experimental aspects of mineral formation and utilizing large datasets to track the evolution of minerals over geologic time. This year he is wrapping up a four-year project, the “Carbon Mineral Challenge,” which sought to unite academics and amateur collectors to predict and find new mineral species containing carbon. He was, recently asked to help design a new exhibit on mineral evolution for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, a project that is still ongoing and he says has been an honor to be part of. Happily, during this past year he also got married to his beautiful wife and gained two wonderful stepdaughters. The family is now in the process of buying their first house together and planning for a bright future.
Don Schroder ‘78
Schroder currently sells print, digital, and video advertising for Popular Woodworking magazine and co-leads African photographic safaris to South Africa, Botswana, and Kenya with Magnum Excursions, headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania. To view photos from a May photo safari tour/workshop to the Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa, visit Don Schroder Photography at https://www.donschroder.com.
Mike Weber ‘82
Weber worked at the United State Geological Survey and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for thirtysix years, before retiring in 2018 as the director of Nuclear Regulatory Research. From 2010 to 2015, he served as deputy executive director for Materials, Waste, Research, State, Tribal, and Compliance Programs, the second highest career staff position at the NRC. A 1982 Penn State geosciences graduate, he continued to apply his geosciences skills throughout his career, especially on high-level waste repository projects and on groundwater protection and environmental remediation. In 2015, Weber represented the NRC at the sixtieth anniversary celebration of Penn State’s Breazeale Nuclear Reactor. He has returned to Pennsylvania and resumed his exploration of the geology of the Commonwealth, including serving as a tour guide at the Cornwall Iron Furnace and the adjacent ore banks.