Overview

What kinds of jobs do geology majors get after graduating from The College of Wooster?

Geology graduates from Wooster go on to be geoscientists specializing in natural hazards, non-renewable and renewable energy, and water resources. They work for natural resource companies, consulting firms, and government agencies with job titles ranging from project manager and lab director to engineer and data analyst. Some go on to careers in science education in schools, national parks, museums, and non-profit organizations. Others pursue careers in communication as journalists, illustrators, and editors for media outlets, such as National Geographic. Many of our graduates make their way to top-tier graduate or professional programs to build careers in research, law, and more. Wooster ranks sixth among U.S. institutions where women doctorate recipients in the physical sciences earn bachelor’s degrees according to a 2019 report published by the Council of Independent Colleges based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics and National Science Foundation.

Geology at The College of Wooster

Geology majors focus on the physical planet and the interactions of Earth’s spheres over ‘deep’ time. The Earth is our classroom and our small, advanced classes feature field trips to world-class exposures of glaciated terrain and fossils. As early as their first year, students start conducting research in our state-of-the-art science and computing labs. Experiential learning is central to our program and many of our students participate in summer internships and research projects arranged by the college. All students at The College of Wooster complete independent study under the guidance of a faculty mentor. The research work culminates in a thesis delivered in the spring of senior year.

View 2022 Annual Report (PDF)

Learn about Wooster’s STEM community through the STEM Success Initiative

Learn about Wooster’s STEM community through the STEM Success Initiative

Faculty & Staff

Shelley Judge

Shelley Judge

Professor of Earth Sciences

sjudge@wooster.edu

Meagan Pollock

Meagen Pollock

Professor and Department Chair of Earth Sciences

mpollock@wooster.edu

Timothy Siegenthaler

Timothy Siegenthaler

Instrument and Lab Tech/Machinist - Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Physics

tsiegenthaler@wooster.edu

Nick Wiesenberg

Nick Wiesenberg

Geology Technician - Earth Sciences

nwiesenberg@wooster.edu

Greg Wiles head shot

Gregory Wiles

Schoolroy Chair of Natural Resources; Professor of Earth Sciences

gwiles@wooster.edu

Mark Wilson

Mark Wilson

Lewis M. and Marian Senter Nixon Professor of Natural Sciences

mwilson@wooster.edu


Latest geology News

B-WISER Camp 2023

B-WISER summer camp offers girls opportunity to explore STEM fields

The B-WISER educational summer camp, a partnership between The College of Wooster and the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation, will take place June 10-15, 2024. […]

Hudson Davis

APEX Fellowship | Hudson Davis

Major: Geology Class Year: 2024 Organization: Burpee Museum of Natural History I will join the Burpee Museum of Natural History as a field assistant, working […]

Ryan Johnston '23

Turnip Turn-in: Park Ranger intern sets precedents for research classification and completion

Ryan Johnston ’23 says he’d be a very different person if he hadn’t attended The College of Wooster. The Ohio native came to play […]

Mark Wilson, the Lewis M. and Marian Senter Nixon Professor of Natural Sciences

Earth Sciences professor names fossil for Wooster

Mark Wilson, the Lewis M. and Marian Senter Nixon Professor of Natural Sciences in the Department of Earth Sciences at The College of Wooster, […]

More geology Articles

Major

The Earth Sciences Department offers two majors: geology and environmental geoscience. Both majors share a set of foundational science courses, followed by a selection of advanced courses in the Earth sciences or cross-listed disciplines that allow students to pursue their interests and goals. The geology major is a more traditional Earth science curriculum that prepares students for a variety of geoscience careers in fields ranging from paleontology and natural disasters to energy and natural resources.

 

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Minor

Students who want to build on their course of study with a minor that includes geology can opt to add a minor in Earth Sciences, which requires completion of six courses in geology and environmental geoscience.

 

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Independent Study

In their junior year, Geology and Environmental Geoscience majors undertake a Junior Independent Study (I.S.) project in close collaboration with their peers and a faculty mentor. Students study the concepts and techniques of Earth Science research to prepare for their senior I.S., a capstone experience that challenges them to design and pursue a research project that makes an original intellectual contribution to the geosciences. Because Earth Sciences are best learned by doing, majors often participate in extended field/lab work or a research program during the summer between their junior and senior years. In recent years, students have undertaken field studies in diverse places in the U.S. (Alaska, California, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, Washington) and across the globe (Bahamas, Belize, British Columbia, Cyprus, Mongolia, Iceland, Israel, and western Europe). Our students have worked alongside researchers in labs at The Ohio State University, UNC Chapel Hill, UMass Amherst, and the American Museum of Natural History, among other institutions.

 

Search the I.S. Database

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Turnip Turn-in: Park Ranger intern sets precedents for research classification and completion

Ryan Johnston ’23 says he’d be a very different person if he hadn’t attended The College of Wooster. The Ohio native came to play […]

Uniaxial compression of FOAMGLAS® and bubble deformation

Name: Lauren Kreeger Major: Geology Minor: German Studies Advisor: Dr. Shelley Judge, Dr. Mark Wilson The degassing of bubbly silicic melts controls the explosivity […]

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Name: Abigail Rice Major: Computer Science Minors: Mathematics, Geology Advisors: Daniel Palmer, Drew Guarnera Geologic cross-sections show us a history of the Earth and are an important […]

Alumni

Geology graduates from Wooster go on to be geoscientists specializing in natural hazards, non-renewable and renewable energy, and water resources. They work for natural resource companies, consulting firms, and government agencies with job titles ranging from project manager and lab director to engineer and data analyst. Some go on to careers in science education in schools, national parks, museums, and non-profit organizations. Others pursue careers in communication as journalists, illustrators, and editors for media outlets, such as National Geographic. Many of our graduates make their way to top-tier graduate or professional programs to build careers in research, law, and more.


Related Articles

Lauren Vargo '13

Alumna on ice: Lauren Vargo ’13 studies connections between glacier melt and climate change

This story originally appeared in the Spring 2023 edition of Wooster Magazine. Lauren Vargo ’13 came to The College of Wooster because she wanted […]

Trinda Bedrossian ’69

Trinda Bedrossian ’69 captures 165 years of California’s geological history

Following the 150-year anniversary of the California Geological Survey (CGS), Trinda Bedrossian ’69, a geology major at The College of Wooster, felt inspired to […]

Sarah McGrath '17 conducting research off the coast of Chile in summer 2019

Geology alumna ­­awarded fellowship for climate research

The research opportunities at Wooster prepared Sarah McGrath ’17 for her graduate studies

Kelli Baxstrom ’16

Geology alumna researches landslides after natural disasters

As a geologist for the United States Geological Survey, Kelli Baxstrom ’16 put much of the expertise learned from her time at The College […]

Lectures

The Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lectureship in Geology

The Richard G. Osgood, Jr., Memorial Lectureship in Geology was endowed in 1981 by his three sons in memory of their father. Dr. Osgood was a paleontologist with an international reputation who taught at Wooster from 1967 until 1981. Funds from this endowment are used to bring a well-known scientist interested in paleontology and/or stratigraphy to the campus each year to lecture and meet with students.

Past Lecturers

  • 2020 James White, College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder
  • 2019 Alycia L. Stigall, Department of Geological Sciences, OHIO Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies, Ohio University
  • 2018 Maureen Raymo, Bruce C. Heezen Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Core Repository Director, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University
  • 2017 Rob Thieler, U.S. Geological Survey, Coastal and Marine Geology Program, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
  • 2016 Patrick O’Connor, Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine
  • 2015 Scott White, University of South Carolina,
  • 2014 Jessica Conroy (’03), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • 2013 Michael E. Mann, Penn State University
  • 2012 George Davis (’64), The University of Arizona
  • 2011 Dr. Susan Lozier, Duke University
  • 2010 Dr. James W. Hagadorn, Amherst College

Lab Facilities

The Department of Earth Sciences is housed in Scovel Hall, one of Wooster’s most attractive buildings. Equipment available to earth sciences majors includes binocular and petrographic microscopes, a video system attached to a microscope, computers, photomicroscopes, zoom transfer stereoscope, fluid inclusion system, variable magnification scanning stereoscope, diamond saws and and rock grinding equipment, photography labs, thin-section machine, mapping projector, seismic station, and large sedimentological, paleontological and mineralogical collections. The earth sciences library holdings are unusually complete for a small college.

Paleontology

The paleontological facilities at Wooster include standard rock saws and grinders, along with Nikon microscopes, digital imaging systems, and fossil preparation tools. We also have extensive research collections, particularly for carbonate hardgrounds, ancient bioerosion, Ordovician invertebrates, and Jurassic limestones and fossils.

Sedimentology

Ohio is a wonderful place to pursue undergraduate research in sedimentology and stratigraphy through Wooster’s Independent Study program. The local rocks provide an excellent sample of Paleozoic paleoenvironments and rock types. Our equipment includes GPS devices, computers, digital imaging equipment, numerous Nikon petrographic and dissecting microscopes, and the standard rock preparation tools, such as saws, grinders, and thin-section machines.

Wooster Tree Ring Lab

Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree-ring growth patterns. The tree-rings extracted from old wood can be calendar-dated and thus we can determine the calendar date the tree was cut. The tree-ring series are also records of past drought. We are interested in sampling historical structures for their tree-ring records. Our goal is to assemble long tree-ring chronologies from oaks by sampling both living trees and old wood. The data will be used by us and others in modeling past droughts in Ohio and together with similar records across North America.

X-Ray Lab

The acquisition of an X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (XRF) and an X-ray Diffractometer (XRD) was funded by the National Science Foundation to support Wooster’s robust undergraduate research program. In addition to providing our students with valuable hands-on analytical experience, we hope that the instruments will foster creative collaborations and interdisciplinary research. Please explore this site to learn more about the instruments, who we are, and the research possibilities.