This year saw two highly impactful retirements from LPL. Academic Manager Mary Guerrieri and Business Manager Lynn Lane both retired, after a combined total of about 75 years of service to the University. Together they served as our library of institutional knowledge and were instrumental in explaining to me how and why things worked as they did at LPL when I arrived back as Director. Everyone who has studied or worked at LPL over the past decades was touched, in one way or another, by their steady guidance, leadership, sense of humor, and support of our program. Read more about their impact and importance to LPL.

With the departure of Lynn and Mary we were fortunate to find excellent individuals to step into their roles. Erma Santander, who managed the Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences academic enterprise now serves in that role for us. Meanwhile Amy Brenton, who advises our graduate and undergraduate students and oversees graduate student recruitment, has taken on additional roles previously handled by Mary, including producing our newsletters. Finally, Adriana Kelly is our new Business Manager, overseeing our business operations and keeping watch over our budget. Our new team is already working together and serving our community to the high standards set by their predecessors.

Enjoy the photos of this Fall’s graduate student field trip to the Owens Valley, on the eastern slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada. In the field our students explored a variety of geologic features and some used radar to look for subsurface ice in a suspected rock glacier. My very first geologic field trip as an undergraduate was also to Owens Valley, so I was particularly excited to see our students in this setting.

Be sure to meet our incoming 2025 class of graduate students. In addition to being exceptionally well prepared and accomplished, this is the first all-woman class in the history of our graduate program.

The newsletter also features highlights of the accomplishments of our students and alumni over the past few months. We are particularly proud that LPL alums Faith Vilas and James Keane were recognized by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society with their Kuiper and Urey awards, recognizing, respectively, achievement by senior and junior planetary scientists.

Another distinguished LPL alum, Gordon Bjoraker, has established a new award to support LPL graduate students who receive external prizes and recognition (see box below). We thank Gordy for his support of our students and appreciate all the achievements and contributions of all of our alumni and generous donors.