Rotary Lunch Speaker: Scott Burns – Earthquakes in Oregon – Are we ready for the Big One?

He has been teaching for 48 years, with past positions in Switzerland, New Zealand, Washington, Colorado and Louisiana. Scott specializes in environmental and engineering geology, geomorphology, soils, and Quaternary geology. Scott has won many awards for outstanding teaching with the most significant being the Faculty Senate Chair Award at Louisiana Tech University in 1987, the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Portland State Alumni Association in 2001, and the George Hoffmann Award from PSU in 2007. He has authored over 100 publications and has had over 25 research grants. His first book. Environmental, Groundwater and Engineering Geology: Applications from Oregon, came out January of 1998. His second book, Cataclysms on the Columbia, the Great Missoula Floods came out in October of 2009 and is co-authored by Marjorie Burns, a friend and professor at PSU. He actively helps local TV and radio stations and newspapers bring important geological news to the public, featured on KOIN TV, OPB, KING-5 TV, KATU, and Oregon Wine Press. He was president of the Downtown Rotary Club of Portland, Oregon’s oldest and largest Rotary club in 2009.

Scott has won some national awards in geology: distinguished practice award from the engineering geology division of GSA in 2012, the Richard Jahns Award for engineering geology (top engineering geologist in the U.S.) from GSA and AEG in 2011, the Shoemaker Award for Public Service to the US (GSA) in 2011. and on the state level, the “Outstanding Scientist for Oregon for 2014” from the 73-year-old Oregon Academy of Sciences. Scott is also a Smithsonian Journeys Expert.