About the Department
Mission
To identify and solve fundamental and applied problems in the Geosciences and Environmental Sciences; to acquire new knowledge about Hawaiʻi, the Pacific Basin, and Earth; to serve society by teaching and training future geoscientists, teachers, and citizens; and to be a principal resource for objective Earth science expertise to the state of Hawaiʻi.
Description
The University of Hawaiʻi is a land grant, sea grant, and space grant institution, as reflected in our research and teaching programs. We offer BA, BS, MS, and PhD degrees with focuses in the Earth, Environmental, Marine, and Planetary sciences. We have 20+ regular faculty members and additional 30+ graduate faculty working in all major sub-disciplines of the Earth Sciences. The Department of Earth Sciences normally has 50–60 graduate students and 40–50 undergraduate students in residence. About one half of the students are women and 15% are from foreign countries.
Programs
We offer active, extramurally-funded, research and study programs at the graduate and undergraduate levels, with excellent research facilities. Our geographic location in the midst of the Pacific Ocean and the rich geologic setting of Hawaiʻi provide a natural focus for research programs in a variety of focus areas.
History
Geology was first taught at what is now UH Mānoa in the 1930s, and a formal department was established in 1958 as Hawai‘i’s first geoscience program. Over the next seven decades, the department’s structure evolved alongside the expanding scope of Earth science: the Department of Geology (1958–1964), the Department of Geosciences (1965–1970)—grouped then with Meteorology—the Department of Geology and Geophysics (1971–2018), and, since 2018, the Department of Earth Sciences. During that time, the department occupied three different buildings (shown in the images below: Dean Hall, HIG, and POST), each for 25 to 30 years. The first Ph.D. in Geology was established in 1962, and in 1988 the department moved from the College of Arts and Sciences to the newly formed School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), aligning its mission with the coupled ocean–atmosphere–solid Earth system. These seven decades of growth have positioned the department as a leader in island and planetary Earth science, leveraging Hawai‘i’s unique natural setting to pursue cutting-edge research that spans the world and extends to other planets.
CONTACT US
Department of Earth Sciences
1680 East-West Road, POST 701
University of Hawaiʻi, Honolulu, HI 96822 USA
Tel: (808) 956-7640
earth-dept@soest.hawaii.edu