A Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Christopher G. Maples, Chair, is the Chair of the Department of Geological Sciences at Indiana University. A paleontologist, his current research generally involves field- and literature-based studies of invertebrates or invertebrate traces. He uses these data to address questions that link paleontology and geology. Current research also includes several projects on Late Devonian through Triassic echinoderm extinction, extinction rebound, and biogeography from various parts of the world. He was the 1994 recipient of the Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society. Dr. Maples has served in a number of academic, curational, research administrative, and geological survey administrative positions. Dr. Maples has served as program director for the Geology and Paleontology Program at the National Science Foundation, as chief of the Geologic Investigations Section of the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS) and assistant chief of the Petroleum Research Section of the KGS. Dr. Maples’ professional and advisory activities include serving as president of the board of trustees for the Paleontological Research Institution; chair of American Geophysical Union Geoscience Heads and Chairs; councilor for the Paleontological Society; and associate editor for various professional journals in geology and paleontology.
Warren D. Allmon is the director of the Paleontological Research Institution and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. His major research interest is the ecology of the origin and maintenance of biological diversity and the application of the geological record to the study of these problems. Most recently his work includes research on the paleoceanography and paleoclimate of the western Atlantic Ocean during the last 10 million to 20 million years, and the possible influence of paleoceanographic conditions on the evolution of mollusks in this region. Dr. Allmon has edited several texts and published numerous scientific and popular articles. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America.
Kevin Thomas Biddle received a Ph.D. in geology from Rice University. He is vice president-South America at ExxonMobil Exploration Company. He has been with Exxon—now ExxonMobil—since 1978 and has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility, including: ventures manager, West Africa and Far East; operations manager, West Africa; divisions manager, supervisor, and geological advisor. In 1973 and 1974, Dr. Biddle worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park on projects in Alaska and Southern California. He is involved in several professional activities, including serving as the elected editor of the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists for 4 years, and is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and a member of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and the Houston Geological Society. Dr. Biddle has served as a member of two NRC committees, the Panel on the Geodynamics of Sedimentary Basins and the U.S. Geodynamics Committee.
Donald D. Clarke is division engineer and chief geologist with the Department of Oil Properties, City of Long Beach, California, and teaches geology at Compton Community College. He received his Bachelor’s degree in geology from California State University–Northridge, with additional graduate study at California State University–Northridge, – Los Angeles, and –Long Beach. Mr. Clarke began his career in 1974 as an energy and mineral resources engineer with the California State Lands Commission. He worked extensively on the giant Wilmington oil field and the California offshore. Since 1981 he has been with the City of Long Beach Department of Oil Properties where he is Division Engineer for Geology, Environment and Safety. A member of the Los Angeles Basin Geologic Society since 1974, he has served as president from 1996 to 2001. Over the years he has focused on community outreach and education. Mr. Clarke has also served as chairman of the Long Beach Unit Equity Geology and Sand Volume Subcommittees. A mem-
ber of AAPG since 1986, he is currently on the Advisory Council representing the Pacific Section, and on the Advisory Board for the Division of Environmental Geosciences. He is also on the AAPG Standing Committees on Public Information, and on Reservoir Development and he received the AAPG Distinguished Service Award in 2002. Mr. Clarke has published or presented more than 50 technical papers on topics that include computer mapping, sequence stratigraphy, horizontal drilling, structural geology, and reservoir evaluation, and he has been recognized by the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering as a fellow.
Beth Driver is the scientific advisor for data bases at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency. Her responsibilities have focused on defining an information architecture to support generation, reuse, and dissemination of a dynamic set of imagery and mapping products and on exploring new methods for acquiring and producing geospatial data. Dr. Driver has led various projects exploring alternative business practices, such as the current effort to enhance intelligence and geospatial support for precision strike operations and to enhance the geospatial accuracy of imagery intelligence reporting. Other projects have explored application of new technology to the production and dissemination of NIMA data. Dr. Driver has served on national standards boards for relational data base management systems and for geospatial data. Prior to joining the Defense Mapping Agency, Dr. Driver managed system engineering and system development efforts for intelligence customers of the defense contractor community. She also served as a member of the NRC’s Panel to Review the Oak Ridge Active Archive Center (DAAC).
Thomas R. Janecek is curator of the Antarctic Marine Geology Research Facility at Florida State University. His research interests include paleoceanography, paleoclimatology, and deep-sea sedimentology. His previous positions include terms at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University as a research scientist and the Ocean Drilling Program as a staff scientist. He has sailed on 14 deep-sea drilling expeditions and has participated in an international coring project in Antarctica. He is currently involved in U.S. and international efforts to establish long-term, scientific deep-sea drilling and coring programs in the southern oceans surrounding Antarctica and in the Arctic Ocean.
Linda R. Musser is head of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Library at the Pennsylvania State University. Ms. Musser received her B.S. in civil engineering and worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and in industry. She has an M.S. in library and information science from the University of Illinois; her research relates to the challenges and methods for preserving and providing access to scientific and technical information. She is a member of the American Library Association, Special Libraries Association, American Society for Engineering Education, Tau Beta Pi, and the Geoscience Information Society. She is past president of the Engineering Libraries Division of the American Society for Engineering Education and served as co-chair of the Geoscience Information Society Preservation Committee.
Robert W. Schafer is a mineral exploration and business development consultant. From 1996 to 2002 he was vice president for exploration at Kinross Gold Corporation. Over the 24-year period before working with Kinross, Mr. Schafer worked as regional exploration manager for BHP Minerals, exploration manager for Addwest Gold Corporation and Billiton Metals, and as an exploration geologist for U.S. Borax-RTZ. He is active in the Society of Economic Geologists, where he is on the Executive Council and a trustee on its Foundation Board. He is a member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME), where he sits on the Board of Directors; Northwest Mining Association, where he held a position as trustee; and the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, where he is currently vice president. Mr. Schafer is also active in the Prospectors and Developers Association as a board member, and Canadian Institute of Mining where he has been on the planning committees for the 1999, 2000, and 2001 meetings. He is a past president of the Geological Society of Nevada and has authored and edited a number of publications concerning mineral exploration and the business of exploration. In 2002, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers selected Mr. Schafer to receive the William Saunders Gold Medal.
Robert M. Sneider (NAE) is president of Robert M. Sneider Exploration, Inc. Dr. Sneider received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. His primary interests include petroleum exploration, property acquisition, and integrated geoscience-petroleum engineering studies. For the past 35 years, he has studied the geological, petrophysical, and engineering properties of petroleum reservoir and seal rocks. Prior to 1981, Dr. Sneider was a partner with Sneider and Meckel Associates, Inc., a geological, geophysical, and petroleum engineering consulting and exploration company. He also spent 17 years with Shell Oil and Shell Development in a number of different areas of geology and petrophysics. He is a member of National Academy of Engineering Section 11: Petrology, Mining and Geologic Engineering. Dr. Sneider is an honorary member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and a recipient of their Sidney Powers medal.
John C. Steinmetz is director of the Indiana Geological Survey and State Geologist of Indiana. Before coming to Indiana in 1998, Dr. Steinmetz held a similar position at the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology for 4 years. His previous positions include terms on the faculty of the Depart-
ment of Marine Science, University of South Florida; adjunct professor of Geology, University of Montana; and senior research geologist for Marathon Oil Company in Littleton, Colorado. He is currently the treasurer of the Association of American State Geologists and secretary to the Executive Committee of the American Geological Institute (AGI). He is a member of the GeoRef Advisory Board for the AGI, the Board of Trustees of the Paleontological Research Institution, and the Advisory Board of Micropaleontology Press. His research interests include biostratigraphy, micropaleontology, and the geology of Indiana. Dr. Steinmetz received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in geology from the University of Illinois; he earned his Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami.
Sally Zinke is a geophysical consultant in Denver, Colorado, involved in a number of U.S. and international projects. Ms. Zinke joined Mobil in 1973 and held a number of technical and managerial positions in exploration and production. Ms. Zinke also handled geophysical applications for the Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas, for several reservoir characterization and technology transfer integration projects. She was a geophysical coordinator for development and implementation of relational database software for a consortium of 15 major international upstream petroleum companies. Her main interests are technology integration at the reservoir level, and high resolution seismic and reservoir characterization. Ms. Zinke has served as chair for a number of Society of Exploration Geophysicists committees and formerly held the office of president. She is an active member of American Association Petroleum Geologists, European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, Denver Geophysical Society, and the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists.
NRC Staff
Paul Cutler, study director, is a program officer at the NRC Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. He received a Bachelor’s degree from Manchester University, England, a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the NRC, Dr. Cutler was an assistant scientist and lecturer in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research is in surficial processes, specifically glaciology, hydrology, and Quaternary science. In addition to numerical modeling and GIS-based research, he has conducted field studies in Alaska, Antarctica, Arctic Sweden, the Swiss Alps, Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains, the midwestern United States, and the Canadian Rockies. He is a member of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union, and the Geological Society of Washington, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Monica Lipscomb is a research assistant for the NRC Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. She is completing a Master’s of Urban and Regional Planning at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Previously, she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Côte d’Ivoire and has worked as a biologist at the National Cancer Institute. She holds a B.S. in environmental and forest biology from the State University of New York—Syracuse.
