Samuel A. Bowring (Sept. 27, 1953 – July 17, 2019)[1] was the Robert R. Schrock Professor Emeritus of Geology in the Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology.[2][3] He was expert in the field of U-Pb zircon geochronology, pushing the limits of geochronologic techniques to unprecedented analytical precision and accuracy and was expert in constraining rates of geologic processes and the timing of significant events in the geologic record. He investigated the explosion of multi-cellular life in the Early Cambrian as well as the end-Permian and the end-Cretaceous mass extinctions.
Bowring was born inPortsmouth, New Hampshire and raised inDurham, New Hampshire. He graduated from theUniversity of New Hampshire with a BS in geology in 1976, from theNew Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology with an MS in 1980, and fromUniversity of Kansas with a PhD in geology in 1985. He was an assistant professor atWashington University in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1984 to 1990. In 1991 he joined the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT.
His major contributions were recognized by many organizations and institutions, including theNational Academy of Sciences (Member, 2015),[4] theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (Member, 2013), theAmerican Geophysical Union (Fellow, 2008);[5] Norman L. Bowen Award, 2010;[6] Walter H. Bucher Medal, (2016),[7] theGeochemical Society (Fellow, 2011), and theGeological Society of America (Fellow, 1999)—and, MIT (Breene M. Kerr Professorship, 2002–2007; Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, 2006—). Bowring served on the first-year learning community Terrascope (2006–2014) as associate director and then director, and chairing the (former) Undergraduate Committee (2002–2016).
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