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Wallace named strategic research directorate leader

Terry Wallace is Los Alamos' new associate director of strategic research (ADSR). Wallace has most recently been Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) Division leader.

Wallace takes over leadership of ADSR from acting associate director Micheline Devaurs. Devaurs and Ross Lemons will serve as acting deputy associate directors.

"Part of our ability to maintain and nurture scientific excellence at Los Alamos depends upon identifying skilled leadership. Terry Wallace is well suited to help cultivate the Lab's genius for solving our nation's most pressing scientific problems," said Laboratory Director Pete Nanos. "At the same time, Micheline and Ross have done a tremendous job of getting ADSR operations restarted and figuring out how to do great science in the context of operational excellence. Their service in the last six months is a source of pride to all of us."

Raised in Los Alamos, Wallace returned in May 2003 to take the job of EES deputy division leader. Shortly thereafter, he was named acting division leader and became permanent EES leader in December of that same year. Prior to coming back to Los Alamos, Wallace had been a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona since 1983. Wallace also was a faculty member in the Applied Mathematics Graduate Program, curator of the University of Arizona Mineral Museum and director of the Southern Arizona Seismic Observatory.

Wallace has authored or co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in various areas of seismology and tectonics, including ground-based nuclear explosion monitoring, plate tectonics, regional Earth structure and forensic seismology. He is the co-author of Modern Global Seismology, one of the most widely used textbooks on the subject.

Wallace received bachelor's degrees in mathematics and geophysics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in 1978. He received his doctorate in seismology from California Institute of Technology in 1983. He received the Macelwane Medal in 1992 from the American Geophysical Union for outstanding research contributions by a young scientist, and in February 2003, Carnegie Museum of Natural History honored him with the 2002 Mineralogical Medal for outstanding contributions in mineralogical preservation, conservation and education.

Wallace has served in a number of professional organizations, including being elected as vice president (1995) and president (1999-2000) of the Seismological Society of America. He was a founding member of the Incorporated Research Institutions in Seismology, an NSF funded consortium of more than 100 seismology-oriented organizations, and served as chairman of that organization from 1994 until 1996.

--Todd Hanson

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