Since fall 2021 I am a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering at Colorado School of Mines. From 2017 to 2021 I was a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Boone Pickens School of Geology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater. The focus of my teaching is igneous and metamorphic petrology, mineralogy, introductory geology, field geology and volcanology. Additionally, I am heavily involved with the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, having previously serving as Secretary-Treasurer of the MId-Continent Section and Evaluation Co-Chair of the 2019 and 2020 Earth Educators’ Rendezvous.

Until July 2017, I was a teaching fellow (lecturer) at the Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES), Australian National University. My teaching load included EMSC1006: The Blue Planet (introductory earth systems science),  EMSC2017: Rocks & Minerals (igneous petrology/mineralogy) and EMSC3025: Groundwater. I am passionate about earth science education and how we can improve outcomes for our students. In order to do this I regularly undertake teaching related professional development and have presented at geoscience education conferences. In 2016 I was awarded the KSW Campbell Award for outstanding teaching at RSES, and was accepted as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

In 2014 I completed my PhD at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University under the supervision of Dr Greg Yaxley. My project utilised igneous and experimental petrology techniques to examine the relationship between oxygen fugacity and metasomatism in the cratonic lithosphere, by examining garnet peridotite xenoliths. Techniques include petrography, electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) as well as high pressure experiments. I have also been involved in a number of synchrotron experiments using Fe K-edge XANES to determine Fe oxidation states in garnet and thus calculate oxygen fugacity, these have been performed of the X-ray Fluorescence Microprobe beamline at the Australian Synchrotron.

You can contact me at brendan.hanger at gmail.com or find me on Twitter or Instagram.