Profile of Roberta L. Rudnick

Abstract

Plenty of mysteries lurk beneath the Earth’s surface. Roberta Rudnick, a Distinguished University Professor and chair of the department of geology at the University of Maryland (College Park, MD) and recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, has plumbed these depths. In her Inaugural Article, Rudnick presents a mass balance model for lithium isotopes, used to track chemical weathering on our planet’s surface (1). Roberta L. Rudnick. Her work has been honored with the Dana Medal from the Mineralogical Society of America and the N.L. Bowen Award from the American Geophysical Union. Rudnick is also a fellow of five scientific organizations as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Growing up in the Portland, OR, suburb of Tigard, Rudnick’s passion for science was cultivated by her high school science teacher who taught physics, astronomy, and geology. “I took all of those and I loved all of them,” she says. Rudnick’s love of the outdoors trumped her love of physics, however, and upon graduation she opted to major in geology at nearby Portland State University. It was the perfect time to be a geology student in Portland: Rudnick had a front-row seat to the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, just 50 miles away. “Groups of us had gone up there when it started erupting a little bit of ash,” she recalls. “One time we were up on the south side, and if it had gone off when we were up there, we would really have had an interesting time getting out. All of the roads we used were along the valleys where the mudflows went.” At Portland State, she met her future husband and lifelong scientific collaborator, William McDonough, now a professor …