Geology Chair Receives Busk Medal from Royal Geographical Society

Lewis Owen, department head and professor in the

nationally ranked Department of Geology

at the University of Cincinnati, has just received the Busk Medal, a prestigious award by the Royal Geographical Society for his field research in paleoenvironmental history and geomorphology in tectonically active areas.

At the RGS Annual General Meeting on June 6, Owen was presented with the award by Michael Palin, RGS president and original cast member of comedy troupe Monty Python.

“It was quite nice,” Owen says. “It’s a very prestigious award from the oldest geographic society in the world. The people who have received this medal before me are very well known in geography. It was quite an honor to get it.”

Owen has dedicated his career to studying the tectonically active mountain belts in the Himalayas and the Cordilleras. With more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, three books, 16 book chapters, funding by important organizations like the National Science Foundation and a fellowship with the Geological Society of London, he has become an important figure in tectonic research. His ultimate goal, he says, is to better understand and model the evolution of ancient mountains.

Owen, who is spending part of his summer in the Himalayas conducting fieldwork, was also recently elected as a fellow of the

Geological Society of America

.