James Wilson is a senior Geology student. James is a second generation, born and raised, Floridian. He graduated with honors in Business from Navarre High School in 2002 and attended Okaloosa-Walton Community College for two semesters before taking a few years off to learn the hard way that a college degree is essentially necessary for a prosperous and enjoyable career. Knowing he had missed valuable time, James went back to school determined to be the best student he could be. He finished his A.A. in spring 2007 and transferred to USF to pursue a B.S. in Geology with honors.

James, understanding that field experience is absolutely essential for learning geology, has sought after as much as possible, attending the following trips: 1.) two trips to La Manzanilla, Mexico to study the ecohydrology of a coupled human-mangrove ecosystem for which he presented a poster at the 2008 Undergraduate Research Symposium, 2.) a field trip to Miches, Dominican Republic to study ecohyrology and its relationship with land use practices, 3.) a one month stay in Ensenada, Mexico as a field assistant for two M.S. students doing their thesis on the Agua Blanca Fault with magnetic and gravity data combined with field mapping, 4.) an honors thesis data collection trip to the Henry Mountains of Utah to do a magnetic survey of the Trachyte Mesa “laccolith” and 5.) a six month internship with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama to study the geology of the Panama Canal in newly excavated areas of the canal during the canal expansion project and to do geologic field mapping in nearby Eastern Panama locales.

During his academic career at USF, James has received two Patel Center Global Research Scholar awards, a second place prize at the 2008 USF Geology Expo for his Ecohydrology of a coupled human-mangrove ecosystem poster, and was the first awardee of the distinguished Dick Fletcher Award in geology which is awarded to one outstanding USF geology student.

James plans to graduate in the spring 2010 and attend graduate school as a structural/tectonics geologist. He hopes to continue working in Panama because of its tectonic complexity, beauty and his experience there so far. Ultimately, James wants to pursue a Ph.D. in structural geology and teach at a university.