Dr. Stuart Eyre Sutherland
Citizenship: Canadian (from 2002) Address: #1206-1075 Comox St. Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6E 1K2 Place of Birth: Manchester, UK / DOB: 25 Jan 1966 Employment Status: Tenured Professor in Earth Sciences, UBC Vancouver Email: [email protected] / Tel: (604) 3280426 Web: http://www.stuartsutherland.co/earthlectures/
! References available on request
! Availability Non sabbatical years: May through August / Sabbatical years (2022, 2029, 2036): Throughout the year
! Summary Statement I am a Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC). During my time at UBC I have received 6 teaching awards and been recognized by Maclean's magazine for my teaching. I wrote and hosted 36-episodes of “A New History of Life” for The Great Courses LLC (The Teaching Company) and the 24-episode series “Introduction to Paleontology” in association with the Smithsonian Institution. I have a passion for promoting Earth Science to people of all ages and to those who have little to no experience in the discipline. I have delivered lectures on cruise ships in SE Asia, Hawaii, the Western Pacific, Central and South America, on trans-Atlantic crossings and in the Mediterranean. In 2018 I will add the east coast of North America, Greenland, Iceland and Norway to my cruise lecture log.
! Guest Lecturer Appointments Although my lectures are generally placed in the "special interest" category, I select topics that are specific to locations visited during a cruise. The benefit of being an Earth Scientist is that my lectures are adaptable and relevant to virtually any location a ship will visit, sail close to or (in some cases) sail over. In association with ship’s entertainment directors I have participated in "coffee morning-ask the scientist” sessions and have been a tour escort on a number of excursions where I was happy to provide Earth Science background for the tour guides. A sample of lectures delivered is provided on page 3-5 of this CV. Cruise lecture log follows:
MS Rotterdam: 17 Feb - 14 Mar 2015 MS Prinsendam: 6 May - 20 May 2017 Singapore / Indonesia / Malaysia / Sri Lanka / India Fort Lauderdale - Amsterdam 9 lectures 11 lectures MS Statendam: 21 Sep - 30 Sep 2015 MS Prinsendam: 5 May - 19 May 2018 Vancouver - Hilo, Hawaii Fort Lauderdale - Dover 6 lectures 11 lectures MS Zaandam: 7 Oct - 25 Oct 2015 MS Rotterdam: 30 Jun - 18 Jul 2018 San Diego - Valparaiso Boston - Rotterdam 8 lectures 7 lectures MS Rotterdam: 25 Oct - 14 Nov 2016 MS Rotterdam: 18 Jul - 5 Aug 2018 New York City - Civitavecchia (Rome) Boston - Rotterdam 11 lectures 7 lectures
! Selected Awards and Recognition In addition to the awards listed below, since starting teaching at UBC in 2000, I have maintained a 94% “highly satisfied” score on undergraduate evaluations of my teaching.
• 2016: Department Undergraduate Teaching Prize (UBC). • 2011: Selected as a professor for The Great Courses LLC. Extract from the company web site: “Each year, our professional recruiters identify the top 1% of professors based on teaching awards, published evaluations, newspaper write-ups, and other sources. Then, our team travels to universities and academic institutions-from Harvard to Stanford to UCLA to UNC-and listens to these professors deliver lectures to their students. Of these few professors, only 1 in 20 is selected to give an audition lecture for The Great Courses. Each audition is then thoroughly reviewed by hundreds of our customers. Those professors who receive a high score are invited to craft a Great Course. In the end, we and our customers choose about 1 in 5,000 professors to create courses for us.” • 2010: Departmental Undergraduate Teaching Prize (UBC). • 2006: UBC Killam Teaching Prize. “The prizes are awarded annually, from the Killam Endowment Fund, to faculty nominated by students, colleagues, and alumni in recognition of excellence in teaching at UBC.” • 2005: “Popular Prof” in Maclean’s guide to Canadian Universities. • 2003/04: EOAS Undergraduate instructor of the year (UBC). • 2003: “Popular Prof” in Maclean’s guide to Canadian Universities. • 2003: UBC Faculty of Science Achievement Award for Teaching. • 2001/02: Departmental Undergraduate instructor of the year (UBC)
! Video Productions Responsible for the development of content and the delivery of material in The Great Courses LLC studios in Chantilly VA. • 2016: Introduction to Paleontology, The Great Courses (36 episodes) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/introduction-to-paleontology.html “How did we—not just humans, but all of life, and planet Earth itself—come to be? To find out, you need everything from paleobotany and paleogeography to paleozoology—in short, what you need is the science of paleontology.” • 2013: A New History of Life, The Great Courses (24 episodes) http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/a-new-history-of-life.html “Life is stranger than fiction. Recent investigations hint at episodes in the history of life on Earth that rival the most imaginative movies. For example: Could our planet have been seeded with life from elsewhere? Did the development of life create conditions that threatened to poison the biosphere? How have natural forces conspired, over and over, to remove most traces of life from the planet? And how has life itself responded with determination to survive and thrive in a multitude of astonishing forms?”
! Education • 1995: Sheffield Hallam University: PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) • 1992: University of Leicester: Ph.D. (Geology and Paleontology) • 1987: University of Plymouth: B.Sc. Hons (Geology and Geography)
! Previous Positions • 1999: University of Saskatchewan - Lecturer in Geology • 1998: Various contracts, Alberta - Well Site Geologist • 1995: Natural History Museum, London, UK - Postdoctoral Research (Geology/Paleontology) • 1994: Brunel University College, London, UK - Lecturer in Geology • 1992: University of Sheffield, UK - Research Associate (Paleontology) ! Current Employer University of British Columbia (UBC), Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS), Vancouver, Canada (from 2000)
• Position: Tenured Professor • Teaching responsibilities: Various course covering a wide spectrum of Earth Science topics taught at various levels from introductory (assumes no background knowledge) to advanced specialist. See “University Teaching Portfolio” on page 5 of this CV for more details. • Selected additional teaching and outreach related responsibilities o Teaching Initiatives Committee Chair of committee overseeing the implementation of new and innovative teaching initiatives within the department including active learning strategies and introduction of technology in the classroom o Pacific Museum of the Earth (PME) / Beaty Biodiversity Museum (BMM) Member of the team providing Geological and Paleontological advice on exhibits and outreach conducted by the museums. For more information please see the following: Pacific Museum of the Earth: http://pme.ubc.ca/ Beaty Biodiversity Museum: http://beatymuseum.ubc.ca
! Sample of Guest Lecture Topics delivered on board between 2015-2018 • The Grand Unifying Theory of Everything (Geological). The story of how a German weatherman helped shape our understanding of the way our planet looks and works. • There be Dragons Here! - Portrait of a Killer. The Komodo Dragons and their even scarier ancestors. • Where Plates Collide - Deep Forces and Terrible Consequences. Why is Indonesia one of the most seismically and volcanically active places on Earth? • Volcanoes and “super-volcanoes” – History Makers. How volcanoes and “super-volcanoes” in Indonesia and across the world have changed the course of history. • Are there “Elves” at the Bottom of the Garden in Indonesia? The little people of Flores Island - Miniature people or a completely new species of Human Being? • The Other Darwin - Alfred Wallace and the History of Life in Indonesia and Beyond. How has biodiversity changed through Earth’s history and what catastrophic events have shaped the evolution of life on Earth? • Where Giants Roamed - Malaysian Dinosaurs. The first dinosaur remains discovered in Malaysia may just be fragments but those fragments belong to a prehistoric star! • The End of the Dinosaurs - Death from the Skies or a Knife in Mumbai? What was the event that ended the dinosaur’s 135 million-year reign on Earth? • Vancouver – A city on the edge. Why is Vancouver sitting on a geological time bomb and what are the cataclysmic events that have led to the formation of British Columbia? • Mountains of the deep - The crucibles of creation? Could mountains we are currently sailing over hold the secret to the origin of life?…. or could we all be Martians? • Hawaii – volcanic wonderland. The fire and brimstone origins of the Hawaiian volcanic chain.
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• Hawaii and the “days” that all of life nearly died. How could geological mechanisms like those responsible for the formation of the Hawaiian islands bring all of life on Earth to its knees? • Hawaii – reaching out to other worlds. The remarkable story of the development of our own solar system and how the big island of Hawaii is reaching out to other worlds around distant suns. • Fire and Brimstone – Messengers from the Earth’s interior. Why is this part of Central America so volcanically active and how does that impact a growing human population? • Decoding Dinosaurs – putting flesh on the bones. South and Central America had a bizarre array of unique dinosaurs but just how do paleontologists bring these ancient fossils back to life? • When continents shake hands – the many consequences of the formation of the Panama Isthmus. Following the death of the dinosaurs South America saw the evolution of some amazing creatures that suddenly had to contend with invaders from the North about 3 million years ago. • Giant Waves – The Science of Tsunami. What causes Tsunami? Where to they occur and can we predict when they will strike? • Fire and Brimstone: The origin of the Azores. Tracing the story of the formation of this volcanic wonderland in the Atlantic Ocean. • Geomythology: The Science of Myth. • Are myths and legends of sunken cities like Atlantis, mystic oracles and monsters echoes of real events and places? • The first ‘peoples’ of Europe – Meet the family! An introduction to the many faces of the ancient humans of Europe. • Doomsday 79AD: Pompeii & Herculaneum. Charting the story and the science of the disaster that overtook the Romans in the Bay of Naples. • The story in the White Cliffs of Dover – the Europe that drowned beneath the waves. The ancient history of NW Europe and scary monsters that swam beneath its tropical seas. • Impacts from space – The evidence we are sailing past. Are large meteor impacts a blast from the past or should we be looking to the future too? • Bermuda – Hot bed of evolution and the story of whales. What does the island of Bermuda tell us about the forces of evolution and how does this help us in understanding how whales threw their legs away for the sea? • Marie Tharp and the map that changed the world. How Marie Tharp rewrote the way the way we understand the planet we are sailing over. • Ocean Mysteries – The Bermuda Triangle and the Myth of Atlantis. Fanciful stories or is there real science behind these intriguing tales? • Extinction and De-extinction - ancient French Elephants. The story of George Cuvier, the concept of extinction and the possibility of bringing mammoths back from the dead. • The European Atlantis and the wave that drowned a world. Giant waves in the Atlantic and the isolation of the British Isles. • Iceland, Earth’s backbone and a threat for the future. Exploration of the largest volcanic island on Earth and its potential for global disaster. • Greenland and the man who changed the world. A lonely grave on an icy plane in Greenland marks the resting place of a man who helped change the way we look at the entire planet.
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• Jameson Land and the time that life nearly died. How rocks and fossils in a lonely part of Greenland started to unravel the greatest catastrophe life has faced in over half a billion years. • Newfoundland and the dawn of animals everywhere. Not far from St John’s is an ancient Pompeii over 600 million years old providing a window into an explosion of animal life. • Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Nova Scotia – how life made the leap to land. The famous Joggins fossil cliffs and clues as to how life in the sea got onto land. • Meteor Strike East Coast USA – an anomaly or a warning from the past? Portrait of a “recent” extraterrestrial visitor and the evidence for other Earth shattering travelers. • Milestones for life: 3 great leaps forward. Fossil treasures in Eastern Canada and Greenland and the windows they open in our understanding of life on Earth. • Ice! Agent of destruction, agent of life! How does ice sculpt a landscape and how may it have been vital in advancing the entire biosphere over 600 million years ago? • Life Boat Norway – The Doomsday Vault on Svalbard. What disasters are the Norwegians preparing for and what evidence have we sailed close to on this cruise? • Christiaan Huygens: Worlds in our solar backyard and beyond. The Dutch Astronomer, his spacecraft and the search for other Earths.
! University Teaching Portfolio • EOSC110 The Solid Earth - A Dynamic Planet: Earth's origin, composition, structure, and natural resources. Plate tectonics as the driving force for volcanism, mountain building, and earthquakes. Imaging Earth's interior. Environmental geoscience and sustainability. • EOSC114 The Catastrophic Earth - Natural Disasters: Introduction to causes and physical characteristics of disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, storm surge, thunderstorms, tornadoes, landslides, wind waves, meteor impacts, mass extinctions. • EOSC116 The Mesozoic Earth - Time of the Dinosaurs: Earth's tectonics, climate, and oceans during the time of the dinosaurs. Reading the fossil record of Earth from its earliest origins up to and including the Mesozoic, 250 - 65 million years ago. • EOSC221 Introductory Petrology: Optical mineralogy and the classification and genesis of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. • EOSC222 Geological Time and Stratigraphy: Measuring geological time and understanding Earth history using stratigraphic principles, paleontology and radioactive decay. • EOSC320 Sedimentology: Origin, diagenesis and geochemistry of sediments and sedimentary rocks. • EOSC326 Earth and Life Through Time: The fossil record of adaptation and extinction emphasizing the interaction of biological and geological processes. • EOSC328 Field Geology: Recording and processing geological data in the field. • EOSC425 Paleontology: Paleobiogeography in the context of plate tectonics. Mass extinction events. Fossilization and biases in the fossil record. Species concepts in paleontology. Biostratigraphy. Paleontological evidence for early life; the colonization of oceanic and terrestrial environments and; the evolution of the primates.