Prof. M. Nafi Toksöz is Robert R. Shrock Professor of Geophysics (Emeritus). He is the Founder of the Earth Resources Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was its Director from 1982 to 1998. He is also the Director of the George R. Wallace, Jr. Geophysical Observatory. He received his geophysical engineering degree at Colorado School of Mines and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, in geophysics, at the California Institute of Technology. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, M.I.T., since 1965.

Prof. Toksöz has made major scientific contributions in many areas of geophysics, including seismic exploration, reservoir characterization, rock physics, plate tectonics, planetary interiors, earthquake seismology and imaging. He is the 2006 recipient of the Harry Fielding Reid Medal of the Seismological Society of America. He has received the scientific achievement medals from NASA, his alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines, and other institutions. In November 1999, SEG honored M. N. Toksöz with Honorary Membership; in 2010 he was presented with the Maurice Ewing Medal, the highest honor of SEG. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, Seismological Society of America, Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Geological Society of America, AAPG, and AAAS.

 

Prof. Toksöz is the author or co-author of more than 400 technical papers in geophysics, including many articles on geophysics and seismology. He has edited books and served on editorial boards of scientific journals. M. N. Toksöz has and continues to serve on scientific advisory and review committees for U.S. government agencies, universities, international organizations, and industry. His academic activities include teaching, leading several research projects, and advising a number of graduate students.

Carl Wunsch is Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. His degrees are from MIT in mathematics (SB, 1962) and in geophysics (PhD, 1967). He has been on the MIT faculty since that time.

Wunsch’s interests have ranged over much of physical oceanography and its geophysical linkages, including internal waves, tides, the oceanic mesoscale, and mixing processes. In recent years, his interests have been primarily focused on determining and understanding the general circulation of the ocean and its climate effects, by exploiting the technologies which have evolved in the last two decades, including satellite altimetry, acoustic tomography, tracers and expendable moorings.

He chaired the committee which led to the launch of the TOPEX instrument, was an instigator of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment and cochaired both U.S. and International Steering Groups for that program. Wunsch has been a member of the TOPEX-/POSEIDON Science Team, and is a member of the Jason-1 and GRACE Science Teams.

He has published extensively on paleoclimate records of various sorts, and on many theoretical topics in climate and physical oceanography. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; a Foreign Member of the Royal Society; the recipient of the Macelwane, Ewing, and Bowie Medals of the American Geophysical Union; the Public Service Medal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Henry Stommel Research Prize of the American Meteorological Society; and the Prince Albert 1er Medal.