Michael R. Perfit

Dr. Michael R. Perfit

Professor of Geological Sciences

mperfit@ufl.edu

Michael Perfit grew up on Long Island, NY where he gained an appreciation and love for the ocean. He is currently Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Florida in Gainesville Florida. He obtained a BS degree in Geology at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York and graduated from Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University with an M.Phil. degree in Marine Geology and a Ph.D. in Geochemistry. He was a Research Fellow in geochemistry at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia for 5 years where he investigated island arc volcanoes and submarine ridges in the southwest Pacific. In 1982 Professor Perfit became Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Florida. He has worked his way through the academic ranks to become a Full Professor and recently served as Chair of the Department (2007-2013). His research has primarily focused on submarine petrology, volcanism and tectonics. Most of his fieldwork and research has been done on the bottom of the ocean or in geochemistry labs investigating the petrogenesis of island arcs, mid-ocean ridge basalts and oceanic spreading centers. He has taken more than 35 dives to depths up to 12,000 feet in the deep-sea submersible ALVIN and more recently has used a variety of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to study and sample the seafloor. Much of his research over the past two decades has been on the northern East Pacific Rise and the Juan de Fuca Ridge where he has studied first recorded historic eruptions on these mid-ocean ridges.

Professor Perfit has served as the Chair of the Deep Submergence Science committee and as a Trustee of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership. At the University of Florida has been selected as an Outstanding Teacher and He has also held visiting research fellowships at Cornell University, the University of Tasmania, the Institut de Physique du Globe (Paris), the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and the Australian National University. Professor Perfit is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.