Faculty

Kim Blisniuk
Associate Professor / Undergraduate Advisor

Prof. Kim Blisniuk applies field investigations, high resolution digital topography data and various Quaternary geochronologic techniques to study how earth’s surface evolves during Quaternary timescales from earthquakes and changes in climate.

Phone: (408) 924-5045
Office: DH 222
Office Hours: By appointment via Zoom or Google Chat
E-mail: kimberly.blisniuk@sjsu.edu

Dr. Blisniuk's website
For Undergraduate advising use:
E-mail: undergradadvisor-geology@sjsu.edu

Nate Bogie
Assistant Professor

Nate is our resident subsurface hydrologist, his lab studies movement of water, nutrients, and contaminants through aquifers, plants, and soil. He also teaches hydrogeology, sustainability, and low temperature geochemistry.

Phone: (408) 924-5038
Office: DH 307B
Office Hours: By appointment
E-mail: nathaniel.bogie@sjsu.edu

Dr. Bogie's Website

Manny Gabet
Professor / Graduate Advisor

I am a geomorphologist with a wide range of interests. My students and I study topics such as the causes of rockfall, the effects of dam removal on river systems, mercury contamination, glacial erosion, and the geologic evolution of the Sierra Nevada.

Phone: (408) 924-5035
Office: DH 223
Office Hours: By appointment
E-mail: manny.gabet@sjsu.edu

Dr. Gabet's website

Portrait of Betsy Madden

Betsy Madden
Assistant Professor

Dr. Madden studies structural geology, rock mechanics and earthquakes using field geology and computational modeling. Many of her projects are methods-based, providing new, creative ways to use modern computational techniques to determine the physical processes and subsurface conditions controlling failure ranging from small fractures to megathrust earthquakes.

Phone: (408) 924-4076
Office: DH 314
Email: elizabeth.madden@sjsu.edu

Dr. Madden's Website

Ellen Metzger
Professor / BAESI Director

I am a metamorphic petrologist and science educator with a wide variety of interests. My current research focuses on high-grade metamorphism in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, Miocene volcanics in the Central California Coast Ranges that formed in a subduction-transform transitional setting, and education for sustainability.

Phone: (408) 924-5048
Office: DH 319
Office Hours: By Appointment
E-mail: ellen.metzger@sjsu.edu

BAESI website

Jonathan Miller
Professor / Department Chair

Phone: (408) 924-5015
Office: DH 321
Office Hours: By appointment
E-mail: jonathan.miller@sjsu.edu

Carlie Pietsch
Associate Professor

I am a deep-time marine biologist (paleontologist) working with an active group of undergraduate and graduate students to study ancient mass extinction and extreme climate events using marine fossils (snails, plankton, sea urchins, etc.), the surrounding sediments, and chemical signals preserved in fossilized shell.

Phone: (408) 924-5279
Office: DH 201
Office Hours: By appointment
E-mail: carlie.pietsch@sjsu.edu

Dr. Pietsch's website
Learn about GeoPaths at SJSU

Ryan Portner
Associate Professor

I am a volcanologist that uses sedimentology/stratigraphy, igneous petrology, geochemistry, geochronology and field mapping to study oceanic crust formation, submarine eruption dynamics and volcaniclastic transport/deposition processes on the seafloor. To do this my research team and I integrate field studies of modern and ancient deposits exposed on the seafloor and on land with laboratory based analytical approaches.

Phone: (408) 924-5009
Office: DH 202
Office Hours: By appointment via Zoom or Google Chat
E-mail: ryan.portner@sjsu.edu

Dr. Portner's website

Don Reed
Professor

Professor Reed is currently in the Faculty Early Retirement Program and teaches oceanography online in the fall semester each year.

Phone: (408) 924-5036
Office: DH 305
Office Hours: By appointment
E-mail: donald.reed@sjsu.edu

Headshot of Siri Veland in the field
Siri Veland
Assistant Professor

Dr. Veland's expertise

Dr. Veland's expertise is in the area of global environmental change and how natural hazards and disaster risk impact and are perceived by communities who are particularly vulnerable to environmental change. She combines science with social science and policy in her research and served in her first year as the faculty-in-residence of the campus Sustainability Program.

Phone: (408) 924-4076
Office: DH 315B
Email: siri.veland@sjsu.edu
Website: Dr. Veland's website