E-An Zen Biography

Dr. E-An Zen (任以安) was born in Peking, China, May 31, 1928, and came to the U.S. in 1946. He became a citizen in 1963. Since 1990 he was adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. 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 (Councillor, 1985–88, 1990–93; President, 1991–92); the American *ociation for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Mineralogical Society of America (Council, 1974–77;Pres., 1975–76). He is a member of the Geological Society of Washington (Pres. 1973), the National Academy of Sciences, and the Mineralogical *ociation of Canada. Zen has been active in programs to bring geological knowledge to the general public.

Education

Received A.B from Cornell University in 1951, M.A from Harvard University in 1952, and PhD from Harvard University in 1955.

Career

Research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Ins*ution, 1955–56; and a research *ociate, 1956–58. From 1958 to 1959 he was a visiting *istant professor at the University of North Carolina. Geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey from 1959 to 1980, and a Research geologist, 1980–89. Visiting *ociate professor at the California Ins*ute of Technology, 1962; Crosby Visiting Professor, M*achusetts Ins*ute of Technology, 1973; Harry Hess Senior Visiting Fellow, Princeton University, 1981; and Visiting Fellow, Australian National University, 1991.

Zen has worked primarily in the northern Appalachians, especially on paleogeographic reconstructions and the origins of exotic terranes in New England. John McPhee once remarked that Zen "is approximately as exotic as the rock he studies."

Awards

He has received the Arthur L. Day Medal, Geological Society of America, 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, 1979. He has also been honored for outstanding contributions to public understanding of geology (American Geological Ins*ute, 1994) and with the Thomas Jefferson Medal, Virginia Museum of Natural History, 1995.

References

External links

• Faculty home page at University of Maryland
• E-An Zen page at University of Vermont
• Books by E-An Zen