Marcia Bjornerud

Marcia Bjornerud (she/her/hers) is Walter Schober Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Geosciences at Lawrence University. She is a structural geologist whose research focuses on the physics of earthquakes and mountain building. She combines field-based studies of bedrock geology with quantitative models of rock mechanics. She has done research in high arctic Norway (Svalbard) and Canada (Ellesmere Island), as well as mainland Norway, Italy, New Zealand, and the Lake Superior region.  

Bjornerud is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Oslo, Norway and University of Otago, New Zealand.   A contributing writer to The New Yorker, Wired, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, she is also the author of several books for popular audiences — Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth;  Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World and Geopedia: A Brief Compendium of Geologic Curiosities.  Timefulness was longlisted for the 2019 PEN/E.O.Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing, and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in Science and Technology. 

Education:
B.S., Geophysics, University of Minnesota, 1983
M.S., Structural Geology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1985
Ph.D., Structural Geology and Rock Mechanics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1987