As a field geologist, 98-year-old Helen Foster, BA ’42/PhD ’46, mapped the farthest-flung islands of Japan, met Emperor Hirohito, and documented Alaska’s landscape.

Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why.