Most of Peter Buseck's career has been devoted to the use of transmission electron microscopy to “Explore large-scale problems with small-scale observations,” applied to microscopic “defects” in a) minerals for information they provide about geological processes, b) meteorites for information they provide about the early Solar System, and c) atmospheric aerosol particles for information they provide about air quality, pollution, and the effects of atmospheric particles on climate change. Past research problems include deep-sea minerals, mercury geochemistry (for geothermal energy, volcanism), solid-state batteries, different forms of carbon, controversy re magnetotactic bacteria and proposed life on Mars, origin of terrestrial water.
Buseck grew up in upper Manhattan, where he attended local public schools and then the Bronx High School of Science followed by Antioch, a liberal arts College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is the first school that he remember enjoying. Co-op jobs at Harvard, USGS in Denver, USFS at Mt. Baker, Scripps of Oceanography, plus a “drop-out” year working in the mines in Peru and Chile rounded out a rich undergraduate experience. Graduate degrees in geology at Columbia University were followed by postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Geophysical Laboratory. From 1963 to 2023 he was on the faculty at Arizona State University. His greatest satisfaction is from the over 100 talented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in his research group and their subsequent careers in academia, government research, and industry. Another source of satisfaction is recognition in his three primary research areas: 2019 – the Roebling Medal – the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America, for outstanding original work in mineralogy; 2021 – the David Sinclair Award, among the highest awards from the American Association of Aerosol Research; 2021 – the renowned ASU meteorite center was named the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies.
Buseck grew up in upper Manhattan, where he attended local public schools and then the Bronx High School of Science followed by Antioch, a liberal arts College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. It is the first school that he remember enjoying. Co-op jobs at Harvard, USGS in Denver, USFS at Mt. Baker, Scripps of Oceanography, plus a “drop-out” year working in the mines in Peru and Chile rounded out a rich undergraduate experience. Graduate degrees in geology at Columbia University were followed by postdoctoral research at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Geophysical Laboratory. From 1963 to 2023 he was on the faculty at Arizona State University. His greatest satisfaction is from the over 100 talented graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in his research group and their subsequent careers in academia, government research, and industry. Another source of satisfaction is recognition in his three primary research areas: 2019 – the Roebling Medal – the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America, for outstanding original work in mineralogy; 2021 – the David Sinclair Award, among the highest awards from the American Association of Aerosol Research; 2021 – the renowned ASU meteorite center was named the Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies.