Louise Kellogg, UC Davis professor of geology, has been elected to the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

“Election to the academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good,” said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz, announcing the new slate of members. “We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day.”

Kellogg studies how the slow movement of rock deep in the Earth’s interior drives the movement of tectonic plates, building mountains as well as causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

She is director of the W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences or KeckCAVES, which uses an immersive, three-dimensional “virtual reality” environment to explore large sets of data. Researchers have used the facility for everything from exploring groundwater pathways and earthquake faults to visiting the bottom of Lake Tahoe and the landscape of Mars.

The KeckCAVES has also been heavily involved in education and outreach to the public, for example working with the Tahoe Environmental Research Center to develop new data displays for visitors, and has collaborated on artistic productions.
Kellogg earned her bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, master of engineering and doctor of philosophy degrees from Cornell University. She joined UC Davis as an assistant professor of geology in 1990 and chaired the Department of Geology from 2000 to 2008. She also serves as the director of the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics at UC Davis, which is supported through the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Read the UC Davis News announcement.