Farouk El-Baz Award for Desert Research to Julio Betancourt

The Geological Society of America has honored USGS Senior Scientist and University of Arizona Adjunct Professor Julio Betancourt [right, credit USGS] with the Farouk El-Baz Award for Desert Research, named after Dr. Farouk El-Baz, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University. 

Among his many accomplishments, Dr. El-Baz helped NASA assist in the planning of scientific exploration of the Moon, including the selection of landing sites for the Apollo missions and the training of astronauts in lunar observations and photography. In keeping, one of the shuttlecrafts in Star Trek: The Next Generation was named El-Baz. 

The Farouk El-Baz Award comes with a $10,000 prize and is given annually to an earth scientist for a body of outstanding work in the field of desert research. The award will be presented at the GSA Annual Meeting Nov. 4-7, 2012 in Charlotte, NC. 

Of the 14 El-Baz Awardees since 1999, one is a current faculty member (Jay Quade), and two others obtained their Ph.D.'s (Les McFadden, Ph.D., '82 and Yehouda Enzel, Ph.D., '90) from the University of Arizona's Department of Geosciences.

[taken from the announcement by UA Geosciences]