A tribute to Edward Grew’s 70th Birthday
The prominent mineralogical journal “The Canadian Mineralogist” has celebrated University of Maine research professor Edward Sturgis Grew’s 70th birthday by dedicating the entire March 2015 issue to his extensive career in mineralogy and petrology. The volume contains 12 papers contributed in his honor by 63 authors representing Grew’s scientific colleagues from around the world.
The cover of the journal depicts the crystal structure of the recently discovered mineral edgrewite, named in his honor.
The introduction, titled “A Tribute to Edward Sturgis Grew: On the occasion of his 70th birthday,” highlights the many professional contributions and discoveries he has achieved throughout his career. Along with his extensive career in mineralogy, Grew was described as an “avid birdwatcher, amateur botanist and hiker, the editor of his father’s memoirs, and, in the company of his wife Priscilla, a world traveler.”
Grew has been a research scientist, educator and mentor at UMaine since 1984. Over the course of his career, Grew has done fieldwork throughout the United States, Antarctica, Australia, Germany, India, Tajikistan and Siberia.
“I am extremely grateful to the University of Maine and to my colleagues and students in the School of Earth Sciences who for three decades have provided such a supportive environment for me to pursue my international career in mineralogy,” said Grew.
Grew and his collaborators have discovered nine new boron and beryllium minerals. In 2007, Grew was named AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In July 2015 at a ceremony in Edinburgh, Scotland, Grew received the Collins Medal from the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, an award given to a scientist that has made an outstanding contribution to pure or applied aspects of mineral sciences and associated studies.
In November 2014, Grew established an endowment and a professorship at the School of Earth and Climate Sciences to continue his legacy of advancement in the field of mineralogy and petrology at UMaine.
The Edward Sturgis Grew Earth Sciences Endowment will provide funding for educational field trips, research excursions and internship opportunities for students. The Edward Sturgis Grew Professorship in Petrology and Mineralogy was created to support a tenure-eligible faculty position in the School of Earth and Climate Sciences. Alicia Cruz-Uribe is the first Edward Sturgis Grew Professor in Petrology and Mineralogy, joining the UMaine faculty in August 2015.