Newsmaker: Kyle Fredrick

Kyle Fredrick

Noteworthy: Fredrick is leading a program that received a $25,000 grant from the Dominion Foundation. The money will help geology students at California University of Pennsylvania get a real-world learning experience through a one-year project doing environmental monitoring of Pike Run, a Monongahela River tributary.

Age: 40

Residence: Baldwin Township

Occupation: Associate professor in the university's Department of Earth Sciences

Background: He received an Environment and Society Institute fellowship to start his work at the University of Buffalo. Before joining California's faculty in 2007, he taught geology at Buffalo State College and at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York. He is vice president of the Pittsburgh Geological Society.

Education: Bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in 2000 and a doctorate in geology from the University of Buffalo in 2008

Quote: “For students, it's an opportunity to use real equipment, collect real data and put a picture in their mind of what the science of hydrology really is. (They're) learning all of the challenges of doing science.”

— Tim Puko