Scott Paterson

Dr. Scott Paterson received a B.S. in Geology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz. After completing a two-year Postdoc at Macquarie University, Australia and the University of California, Santa Cruz, he has been a professor in the Earth Sciences Department, University of Southern California for the past 27 years.

Originally trained as a structural geologist specializing in strain analyses, Dr. Paterson has worked extensively on the behavior of crust in the plastic zone at and below the brittle-plastic transition. He also works extensively on magmatic systems in continental margin arcs, particularly on the use of magmatic structures to unravel the temporal evolution of coupled magmatic-ductile host rock systems. His research group is presently examining the changing fluid regimes across the brittle plastic transition. He has authored and coauthored over 150 publications and received over 20 grants from the National Science Foundation.