William Easterling, director of Penn State's Institutes of Energy and the Environment and professor of geography and earth system science, has been appointed dean of the University's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, effective July 1, pending approval of the Board of Trustees at the May 18 meeting.
 
"Bill Easterling has the expansive vision and leadership qualities that will position one of the University's most distinguished colleges for an even brighter future," said Rod Erickson, Penn State executive vice president and provost.
 
Since 2001, Easterling has served as director of the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, an affiliation of eight Penn State academic colleges and several University research institutes and centers. He joined the faculty of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences in 1997 and also holds an affiliate faculty appointment in agronomy in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
 
He has held positions at Resources for the Future, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. From 1996 to 1998 Easterling was interim director of the National Institute for Global Environmental Change for the U.S. Department of Energy.
 
Easterling is an internationally recognized expert on how global warming may affect the Earth’s food supply. He was a lead author of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on the effects of climate change that was recently released in Brussels.
 
“My focus is on helping the College strengthen its position as a world leader in the earth, material, and energy sciences and engineering. The College has unique strengths to train students and create the new knowledge needed to solve some the greatest challenges of our time, whether in the development of materials with unprecedented properties, desirable energy alternatives or the science for a secure, economical and sustainable planet. It is particularly important that the College be a leader in Penn State’s new emphasis on energy science and engineering,” said Easterling.
 
The College of Earth and Mineral Sciences encompasses five highly ranked academic departments -- energy and geo-environmental engineering, geography, geosciences, materials science and engineering, and meteorology -- as well as four research institutes. Over more than a century, the college has built an outstanding reputation for high-quality teaching, research and service to industry, government and communities. During the 2006-07 academic year, the college was engaged in more than $71 million in research activity.
 
Easterling received a Ph.D. in geography-climatology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he received post-doctoral fellowships at the National Academy of Sciences and the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana.