Dr. E-An Zen (任以安) was born in Peking,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, May 31, 1928, and came to the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in 1946. He became a citizen in 1963. Since 1990 he was adjunct professor at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. He died on March 29, 2014, at the age of 85. He has contributed articles to professional journals and is a fellow of the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitchco ...

(Councillor, 1985–88, 1990–93; President, 1991–92); the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

(AAAS), the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

(Council, 1974–77;Pres., 1975–76). He is a member of the Geological Society of Washington (Pres. 1973), the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

, and the

Mineralogical Association of Canada Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

.Forum on Science and Innovation for Sustainable Development
Dr. E-An Zen
Verified 2011-01-19. Zen has been active in programs to bring geological knowledge to the general public.

Education

Received A.B from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1951, M.A from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1952, and PhD from Harvard University in 1955.

Career

Research fellow at

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

, 1955–56; and a research associate, 1956–58. From 1958 to 1959 he was a visiting assistant professor at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

. Geologist with the

U.S. Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

from 1959 to 1980, and a Research geologist, 1980–89. Visiting associate professor at the California Institute of Technology, 1962; Crosby Visiting Professor,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, 1973; Harry Hess Senior Visiting Fellow,

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, 1981; and Visiting Fellow,

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

, 1991. Zen has worked primarily in the northern Appalachians, especially on paleogeographic reconstructions and the origins of

exotic terrane Exotic may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Exotic R4, a differentiable 4-manifold, homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space R4 * Exotic sphere, a differentiable ''n''-manifold, homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the ordina ...

s in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

John McPhee John Angus McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth ...

once remarked that Zen "is approximately as exotic as the rock he studies."John McPhee, "Travels of the Rock," in ''Irons in the Fire'', Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997.

Awards

He has received the

Arthur L. Day Medal The Arthur L. Day Medal is a prize awarded by the Geological Society of America, established in 1948 by Arthur Louis Day for "outstanding distinction in contributing to geologic knowledge through the application of physics and chemistry to the so ...

, 1986; Roebling Medal, Mineralogical Society of America, 1991; John Coke Medal, Geological Society of London, 1992; and the Distinguished Service Medal,

U.S. Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

, 1979. He has also been honored for outstanding contributions to public understanding of geology (

American Geological Institute The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is a nonprofit federation of about 50 geoscientific and professional organizations that represents geologists, geophysicists, and other earth scientists. The organization was founded in 1948. The name of ...

, 1994) and with the Thomas Jefferson Medal, Virginia Museum of Natural History, 1995.

References

External links

Faculty home page
at

E-An Zen page
at

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...

Books by E-An Zen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zen, E An American geologists 2014 deaths 1928 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Chinese emigrants to the United States Fellows of the Geological Society of America Harvard University alumni Cornell University alumni Presidents of the Geological Society of America