 |
|
The dynamic career of Professor James W. Rector III of the Engineering Geoscience Group at the University of California at Berkeley, has led to international recognition for his work in subsurface seismic methods and innovative commercial enterprise. In academia, his performance in teaching and research resulted in his promotion to tenure last year. All of this occurred before age 35. Jamie may be
accustomed to what seems accelerated progress to his peers. He started
at the University of Wisconsin
as a math major at 14 and in parallel attended the Wisconsin Conservatory
Jazz Piano Program where he polished his musical skills to the point
of playing professionally at 16. To make sure that his educational
experience was well rounded, he played golf in state junior tournaments
and finished in the top 20 in the state amateur at age 18. After
finishing his B.A. in math at age 19, with an eclectic course program
that he insists actually did contain some math and physics, he accepted
an offer from Shell
and discovered the world of geophysics. In the oil boom of the early 1980s, his work as a geophysicist was exciting and the job included an offer to return to a university for a graduate degree. Jamie entered the exploration program at Stanford and received his M.S. in 1984. His work at
Stanford included considerable signal processing, and he received
an offer from a small start-up company that was struggling to perfect
a novel seismic technique using drill-bit noise for continuous VSP
surveying. TOMEX was founded by Bernie Widrow, and at the age of
23 Jamie was the youngest and only geophysicist on the team. His
contributions were critical to the eventual success of the idea
and he became committed to research and development in exploration
seismology. Jamie returned
to Stanford for his Ph.D. where he did pioneering work in crosswell
reflection methods. He has published many papers in this area and
is now regarded as one of the leading research scientists in the
world in the field of borehole and cross borehole seismology. Jamie joined
the faculty of the Engineering Geoscience Group at Berkeley in 1992
and has built a strong research program involving graduate students,
research geophysicists, and faculty and staff colleagues on the
Berkeley campus, at the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore
national labs. Since his graduation
in 1990, Jamie has published more than 11 papers in refereed journals,
two on which he was co-author won best paper awards. The latest,
in 1994, was with one of his current graduate students, John Washbourne.
He was Assistant Editor for Geophysics from 1993 to 1995 and has
an enviable teaching record in both general undergraduate engineering
courses and graduate courses in signal processing and applied seismology.
In parallel with these achievements, he is also a founder and active
participant in Tomoseis, a company specializing in crosshole seismic
surveys. The award citation would not be complete without some sincere acknowledgment of Jamie Rector's qualities as a superb colleague and well rounded person of wit, charm, and talent. It is fair to say that everyone who has worked with him has enjoyed the encounter and has been challenged and impressed by the depth and breadth of his technical knowledge. If this were not enough, Jamie finds time to play first-rate golf and organize and play in a popular professional band. We are fortunate to have such a gifted individual in the geophysics community. James Rector epitomizes the qualities sought for this award. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
 |
 |
|
||||||||
 |
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||