I am pleased to announce that Professor Danny Stockli will be stepping in as interim dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences, effective Feb. 1.
Professor Stockli joined UT as a full professor in 2011 and has served as chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences since 2021. During that time, he has overseen a departmental name change, an overhaul of undergraduate curriculum and rapid growth in enrollment that included the launch of the climate system science major and expansion into the important fields of critical minerals and geosciences AI. His research and laboratory integrate structural geology with isotopic age dating to understand when geological and plate tectonic events occurred. He holds the Bookout Endowed Chair in Structural Geology and is the director of the UTChron Laboratory. Professor Stockli earned a B.A. and M.S. from ETH Zurich and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Professor Stockli will be replacing Dean Claudia Mora, who will be rejoining the faculty in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and engaging more deeply in her new role as president of the American Geosciences Institute. Under Dean Mora’s leadership, the Jackson School made significant academic and institutional gains. She reclassified 120 research scientists as research professors; as a result, the Jackson School now accounts for 60% of the University’s research professors. The school’s undergraduate enrollment also increased 75% during the past five years. Dean Mora strengthened the school’s academic legacy by refreshing the interdisciplinary environmental sciences curriculum, launching Texas’ first climate system science program, increasing undergraduate research, introducing a certificate in machine learning and data analysis, and expanding the interdisciplinary Energy and Earth Resources Graduate Program. Through thoughtful stewardship of the Jackson Endowment and targeted support for translational and global research initiatives such as TexNet and the UT-City of Austin CoLab, Dean Mora advanced the Jackson School's community impact.
Please join me in congratulating Professor Stockli, as well as thanking Dean Mora for her tremendous contributions and leadership!
