Collegiate Times

A Virginia Tech professor of geophysics in the College of Science has been selected to continue his research over the next three years at the esteemed Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Germany.

Scott King has been a professor at Tech since fall 2007. Before coming to Blacksburg, he taught geophysics at Purdue University for 15 years.

Most of King’s research is on the interior of planets. Presently, he has a project that explores the India-Asia collision, the incredible height of the Himalayas and its connection with the tectonics of the entire south China region.

One of King’s students is studying the volcanoes of Mars and how they were formed from movement in the planet’s core.

Changyeol Lee is one of King’s four graduate students studying geophysics whom he advises.

Lee studied with King while he was at Purdue, and when King made the move to Tech, Lee came as well.

“He is very patient,” Lee said. “He understands his students very well, and he wants them to be successful.”

Lee, who is on track to graduate this May, said that King is a brilliant professor who has not only helped him through his graduate work, but who has also supported him in his application for postdoctoral education.

“He has introduced me to important faculty and written references, letters for my postdoctorate applications.”

Based on his work and expertise in the field of geophysics, King has been selected by his colleagues at the Alexander von  Humboldt Foundation to collaborate with researchers at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Germany.

King has visited the school several times before, and says he has made a natural connection with the researchers there.

Over the next three years, King will be spending much of his summers in Germany, studying cooperatively the movement of the planet’s interior and the cause of deep-focus earthquakes.

In addition to the time spent in Germany over the summers, King will also be traveling throughout Europe with his wife and children to visit other colleagues, to see the work they are doing and to discuss his interactions at the Geoinstitut.

According to Lee, this situation is a win-win. King has information and data that the German scholars can use, and the German scholars have lab data that King can use to expand his research.

“One person can only do so much, but together they can do greater things,” Lee said. “This is important stuff — helping each other.”

“The opportunity to go and do this is great,” said King, “but hopefully we can build on that as well.”

His education began at the University of Chicago. He continued at the California Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate. King then attended Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Hoya, Calif., for his postdoctorate.

“I’ve always liked physics,” King said, “and I found in geophysics that with a lot of the classical physics and the classical mechanics. ... It’s easier to visualize what you’re working on.”

A version of this article appeared in the Feb 2 issue of the Collegiate Times.