Richard W. Hazlett is a retired professor emeritus from Pomona College in Claremont, California, where he was a four-time Wig Distinguished Teaching award winner, former chair of the geology department and coordinator of the interdisciplinary Environmental Analysis Program. The Princeton Review ranked him one of The Best 300 Professors in 2012. Presently, he is a research affiliate of the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and an adjunct faculty member in earth sciences at the University of Hawaiʽi, Hilo. His areas of environmental interest include soils and the movement of nutrients and pollutants in natural systems. He also has many years of experience working in volcanology, researching and mapping active volcanoes in Alaska, Italy, Central America and Hawaiʽi. His book publications include The American West at Risk: Science, Myths, and Politics of Land Abuse and Recovery (published in 2008 with co-authors Wilshire and Nielson); Volcanoes: A Global Perspective (published in 2022 with co-authors Lockwood and De la Cruz-Reyna); and Roadside Geology of Hawaiʽi (published in 2022 with co-authors Gansecki and Lundblad). He was lead editor for the Oxford University Press Research Encyclopedia of Agriculture and the Environment (2020). In addition to his academic career, Professor Hazlett is a former employee of the U.S. National Park Service, where he assisted with exhibit planning and illustrations and wrote interpretive brochures for visitors. He credits much of his teaching ability to the "on-the-job-training" of this early career experience.
