About Grace Anne Stewart

Dr. Grace Anne Stewart

The Speaker Series is named after Dr. Grace Anne Stewart, the first female geology major to graduate from the University of Alberta. After obtaining her BA in 1918, Stewart went on to earn a master's degree from the University of Alberta in 1920 and a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1922. Dr. Stewart had a successful career in geology during which she worked at the Research Council of Alberta, the Geological Survey of Canada, and the Office of Strategic Services in Washington D.C. Stewart eventually joined the faculty at Ohio State University in Columbus, where she remained until her retirement. Grace Anne Stewart devoted her academic career to studying Devonian and Silurian fossils, focussing in particular on microfossils and invertebrates from Ohio and several fossils are named after her. During her tenure at Ohio State she was active in the Faculty Women's Group. She was a fellow of the Geological Society of America, as well as the Paleontological Society of America and the Ohio Academy of Science.

Spieker, Edmund M. "Memorial to Grace Anne Stewart 1893-1970." Geological Society of America Memorials 2 (1973): 110-114.
ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/Memorials/v02/Stewart-GA.pdf

Founding members of the Grace Anne Stewart Speaker Series: Danielle Simkus, Morgan Snyder, Merilie Reynolds, Lauren Eggleston, Shawna White, Janina Czas & Stephen Johnston (from left)

Founding of the G.A. Stewart Speaker Series

The G.A. Stewart Speaker Series was created by a group of graduate students in 2015 in response to the imbalanced gender ratio of EAS faculty and Atlas talk series speakers. At that time, only about 3% (i.e., one professor) of the (non-geography) faculty were female whereas 40% of the undergraduate and graduate students in EAS were women.