C. Ian Lerche is the author of more than 500 papers and has received numerous awards, including the Levorsen Award of the AAPG, the Nordic Professorship inPetroleum Geology, and the French Academie des Sciences Professorship in Geology. He has been a professor of geology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of South Carolina since 1984, and was associate chairman of the department 1985–1989. Between 1965–1981 he held positions of research associate, assistant professor, and associate professor at the University of Chicago. From 1981–1984 he worked as a senior scientist at Gulf Research and Development Co. He received a B.Sc. in physics in 1962 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1965 from the University of Manchester.