2024-2025 GSA James B. Thompson, Jr. Distinguished International Lecturer—Alan Fryar

The lecture tours are made possible through a gift to the GSA Foundation by James B. Thompson, Jr., whose bequest contributed to the endowment of two lecture tours by distinguished geologists, one a non-North American scientist to tour academic and related institutions within North America, and the other a North American scientist to tour foreign universities and geological institutions. Both tours are arranged under the guidance of GSA International.

The GSA International committee selected Dr. Alan E. Fryar (University of Kentucky) as the outgoing speaker from within North America who presented exciting and cutting-edge geoscience research in a tour of foreign universities and geological institutions.

Professor Alan Fryar is the James B. Thompson, Jr. Distinguished International Lecturer for 2024-2025.

View Fryar's CV

Dr. Alan E. Fryar, a distinguished hydrogeologist and professor at the University of Kentucky, brought his decades of expertise in groundwater science, international field research, and global capacity building to the 2024 to 2025 Thompson International Lecture Tour. His tour emphasized the importance of water resource science, hydrogeology education, and international scientific collaboration with students, faculty, and early career scientists engaging deeply with his lectures.

Fryar’s research encompasses several overlapping topics, including groundwater-stream interactions; mass transport in karst watersheds; chemical evolution during groundwater recharge and flow; transport and fate of contaminants (radionuclides, chlorinated solvents, nitrate, arsenic, and bacteria) in groundwater; and water resources in developing countries. He has studied regional clastic aquifers in the Texas High Plains and the Gulf Coastal Plain of the USA; alluvial aquifers in the Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland, Ganges, and Mekong river valleys; and karst groundwater basins in Kentucky, Morocco, India, China, and Kyrgyzstan. He has also led or co-led training programs funded by the U.S. State Department for Moroccan, Egyptian, Turkish, and Indonesian graduate students and by the National Science Foundation for U.S. students in Morocco.

Alan received his BS in Geology from Duke University in 1984, his MS in Geology from Texas A&M University in 1986, and his PhD in Geology from the University of Alberta (Canada) in 1992. From 1992 to 1995, he was a Research Associate in the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 1995, he has been a faculty member at the University of Kentucky, where he is currently a Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and program faculty in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. He teaches classes in hydrology, hydrogeology, and environmental geology, and has graduated 9 PhD and 18 MS advisees.

Alan has been a Fulbright Specialist in Environmental Science to Pakistan (2009-10) and India (2017), a Fulbright Research Scholar in Geology to Morocco (2014), and a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow to India (2023). He is a GSA Fellow and was chair of the Hydrogeology Division (2013-14). He has received service awards from the Hydrogeology Division and the U.S. National Chapter of the International Association of Hydrogeologists.

Highlights from the Lecture Tour

Dr. Fryar shares reflections, field notes, and personal insights from his travels in his tour blog posts. His writing includes experiences teaching in new environments, discussing water challenges across diverse regions, and connecting students across borders through the shared language of groundwater science.