Bob Hatcher - Background
My educational background consists of degrees from Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1961, geology, chemistry, minor mathematics; M.S., 1962, geology, minor chemistry) and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville (Ph.D., 1965, structural geology, minor chemistry). My M.S. thesis research was in carbonate petrology and geochemistry. While a student at Vanderbilt, I was employed for two summers by the Tennessee Division of Geology and discovered an aptitude for both the mental and physical challenges of field and structural geology, so this led to my Ph.D. research on a large thrust system in the Appalachian Valley and Ridge. I was employed for about one year by Humble Oil and Refining Company (now ExxonMobil), then joined the faculty of Clemson University where I taught structural geology, mineralogy and optical mineralogy, petrology, engineering geology and environmental geology (not every year) from 1966-1978. During this time I began long-term research projects in the Appalachian Blue Ridge, Inner Piedmont and Brevard fault zone, with assistance from several outstanding Clemson undergraduates. In 1978 my family and I moved to Tallahassee, Florida, and Florida State University, where I taught structural geology and began working with graduate students, and FSU undergraduates, and conducted research in the Pine Mountain window in Georgia and in the North Carolina Blue Ridge. We moved to the University of South Carolina-Columbia in 1980 and in 1986 moved to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I terminated my relationship with ORNL in 2000, and since have been associated only with UTK. Other research projects in the western Blue Ridge, Norway, and Valley and Ridge-Plateau, and others in the eastern Blue Ridge and Inner Piedmont, along with research on the geologic controls of hydrocarbons in the southern part of the Appalachian basin, have begun since coming to UTK.
During the past 25 years, I have served on a number of Geological Society of America committees, on the GSA Council (1980-1982), and as GSA Vice President and President (1992, 1993). From 1981-1988, I served with William A. Thomas as Editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin. From 1990-1996 I served on the National Academy of Sciences Board on Radioactive Waste Management and on several NAS committees, as President of the American Geological Institute in 1996, on a Nuclear Regulatory Commission Federal Advisory Committee on reactor safety from 1993-1996, and on the U.S. Geological Survey Federal Advisory Committee on the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program from 1996 until the present. I currently also serve as Chair of the Geological Society of America Foundation Board of Trustees, Chair of the GSA Honorary Fellows Committee, and Co-Chair of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists History of Petroleum Geologists Committee.
Robert D. Hatcher, Jr.
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
1412 Circle Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996-1410
Phone: (865) 974-6565
Email: bobmap@utk.edu