Joe Smyth's Page


Recreational

I also have a life outside of academics. I live at about 2700m elevation in Gold Hill in the mountains west of Boulder, Colorado and have a small cabin in Summit County, CO. I am a part-time professional snowboard instructor at Copper Mountain. In addition to snowboarding, I enjoy outdoor sports including mountain biking, rafting and kayaking, and climbing and hiking.  I also enjoy travel and photography and have put together some brief web photo essays on recent travels.


Professional
 

I am a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences. With the help of graduate students, Stephen D. Jacobsen, Christopher M Holl, and Faculty Research Associate, H. Mercer Laustsen,  I operate the Mineral Structures Laboratory here in the Department. My research centers on the atomic structures of natural materials and how these structures control the physical properties and distributions of elements in the Earth. I teach courses in mineralogy, crystallography, X-ray powder diffraction, and introductory geology.
I am actively collaborating with scientists at Bayerisches GeoInstitut in Bayreuth, Germany. I spent Spring Semester, 1999 in Bayreuth. I also spent June, 2000 and June, 2001 there.
Curriculum Vita.
Full List of Publications
Mineral Structures Data Base
Rock Art Petrography