Upcoming Purdue lectures to celebrate 2014 McCoy, Research and Scholarship recipients

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Renowned Purdue faculty members H.J. "Jay" Melosh and Marianne Boruch will give free public lectures on Nov. 19 in Stewart Center's Fowler Hall as part of an annual event celebrating university research and scholarship.

Boruch, recipient of the Purdue Research & Scholarship Distinction Award, will give the lecture, "Mystery, Diagnosis, and the Practice of Poetry," at 1:30 p.m. She will discuss what three unlikely literary bedfellows - Arthur Conan Doyle, John Keats and William Carlos Williams - have in common: their medical training.

Melosh, the 2014 recipient of the Herbert Newby McCoy Award, will give the honorary lecture titled "Planetary Smashups: From the Moon's Origin to the Dino's Demise" at 3:30 p.m. His talk will cover the origin and evolution of our planetary system and the asteroid impacts that may have resulted in the exchange of life between planets.

"The annual McCoy and Research & Scholarship Distinction awards celebrate the dedication to research and scholarship by our faculty that has resulted in advancements both in their respective fields and for our university," said Suresh Garimella, Purdue executive vice president for research and partnerships. "The discoveries and scholarship by professors Melosh and Boruch clearly have not gone unnoticed by the Purdue University community or the world beyond it."

Receptions will follow each lecture in the Robert L. Ringel Gallery in Stewart Center. Purdue's Office for Research and Partnerships sponsors the McCoy and Research & Scholarship award lectures each year.

Marianne Boruch  Download Photo

Boruch, a professor of English and award-winning poet, has written eight collections of poetry, two books of essays on poetry and a memoir. She also delivered the keynote address during Purdue's 2013 summer commencement ceremony. She came to Purdue in 1987 as a creative writing professor, developing and directing the master of fine arts program from its inception until 2005.

She has been published in such places as The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, Poetry London, The Paris Review, American Poetry Review and Poetry 180. Her most recent book of poems, "Cadaver, Speak," was released in April.

Boruch earned international acclaim in 2013 when she received the Kingsley Tufts award for "The Book of Hours," which was published by Copper Canyon Press. The award is given annually to a mid-career poet by Claremont (California) Graduate University. The $100,000 prize that goes with the award is one of the largest monetary prizes for writing in the United States.

Jay Melosh  Download Photo

Melosh is a distinguished professor of physics and astronomy who is internationally known for his work on impact cratering, planetary tectonics, and the physics of earthquakes and landslides. He joined the Purdue faculty in 2009 after spending 27 years at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory/Department of Planetary Sciences.

He is part of NASA's Deep Impact mission that created an impact crater on Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, the NExT mission that returned to Tempel 1 in 2011, the DIXI mission to comet Hartley-2, and the GRAIL mission to obtain high-precision data on our moon's gravity field. Asteroid #8216 was named "Melosh" in his honor.

He has published more than 170 technical papers, edited two books and is the author of a major monograph, "Impact Cratering: A Geologic Process." During his time at Purdue, he wrote a textbook on planetary science, titled "Planetary Surface Processes," which was published in 2011 by Cambridge University Press.

The McCoy Award, established in 1964 by Ethel Terry McCoy in memory of her husband, Herbert Newby McCoy, is presented annually to a Purdue student or faculty member for outstanding contributions to the natural sciences. The winner, who is nominated by colleagues and selected by faculty representatives and the university president, receives a $4,000 cash award and a $7,000 allocation for university scholarly activities.

The Purdue Research & Scholarship Distinction Award recognizes university faculty whose recent contributions have made a major impact in a field other than the natural sciences. The 2014 award comes with a $4,000 cash award and $7,000 for university scholarly activities. 

Writers: Anna Schultz, schult70@purdue.edu

Phillip Fiorini, 765-496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu 

Sources: Suresh Garimella, garimell@purdue.edu

Jay Melosh: 765-494-3290, jmelosh@purdue.edu