Gregory Davis

• Geology Program of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Collaborator and consultant with Prof. Wang Tao
• Institute for Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Science (IGGCAS)s, Collaborator with Prof. Meng Qingren

NARRATIVE RESUME´

GREGORY A. DAVIS
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740

Greg Davis received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Stanford University in 1956 and 1957, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree (Geology) from U.C. Berkeley in 1961. He has been on the faculty of U.S.C.’s Department of Earth Sciences since then; a Full Professor in the department since 1972, he served as its Chair from 1977-1981. In 1991, he received the A. S. Raubenheimer Distinguished Faculty Award from U.S.C.’s College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences for “outstanding contributions in the areas of teaching, research, and service.” During his tenure at U.S.C, he has advised approximately 45 graduate students, a number of whom are now faculty members at other institutions. In the 1990’s two of Davis’ former students, undergrad Brian Wernicke and grad An Yin, now Professors at Cal Tech and UCLA respectively, were among the first six recipients of the Geological Society of America’s Donath Medal (the Society’s “Young Scientist” award). In 1971, he was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Washington. In 1999, Davis was appointed Guest Professor at the China University of Geosciences in Beijing, where he began summer teaching in May, 2000; that appointment continues to the present.

Davis is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) and a member of the American Geophysical Union. He was a Distinguished Lecturer on western U.S. tectonics for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists in 1974 and 1975. He is one of very few individuals who have served twice (1982-1983, 1998-1999) as Chair of the Cordilleran Section of the GSA. Davis was Chair of GSA’s Division of Structural Geology and Tectonics in 1987, served as Co-Editor of the Division’s Newsletter from 1991 to March of 1999, and completed ten year’s of service on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Structural Geology in 1998. He is a former Associate Editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, and is a current overseas member of the Editorial Board of Earth Science Frontiers, a leading Chinese journal. For several years in the mid-1980’s he was appointed as a GS-15 Geologist in the U. S. Geological Survey. Davis received the Career Achievement Award of GSA’s Division of Structural Geology and Tectonics for the year 2003; only one recipient of this international award is chosen for each year.

Davis’ research efforts are primarily in the area of tectonics and are largely field-based, although he has co-written (variably, with B. C. Burchfiel, Darrel Cowan, Jim Monger, Gordon Lister, and Zheng Yadong) multiple syntheses of Cordilleran and North China tectonic evolution. He and his students have undertaken field mapping in widespread areas throughout the western U.S. and, since 1987, in northern China. Topics of special interest to Davis include the structural geology and tectonics of metamorphic core complexes, the nature and origin of low-angle extensional (detachment) faults, and the Cordilleran foreland fold and thrust belt. He is at present continuing a multiyear-long study of the Jura-Cretaceous Yinshan-Yanshan orogenic belt of northern China. Much of his research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. [8/2007: gdavis@usc.edu, (213) 740-6726; (818) 761-0501]

• Ph.D. Geology, University of California, Berkeley, 1/1961
• M.S. Geology, Stanford University, 1/1957
• B.S. Geology, Stanford University, 1/1956