Meet Department Head James A. Spotila
Dr. James Spotila became the Head of Geosciences at Virginia Tech in August 2025. Dr. Spotila has been a member of the Virginia Tech community since 1998, when he joined as Assistant Professor after finishing his Ph.D. at Caltech. Dr. Spotila was promoted to Associate Professor in 2004 and Professor in 2012. Throughout this time, he has held various service roles in the Department and University, including serving six years as Associate Department Head, seven years as Director of the Graduate Program (over two terms), three years as Chair of Promotion and Tenure, and six years as a Faculty Senator.
Dr. Spotila’s research in active tectonics and geomorphology is well known and focuses on the interaction of faulting and plate collision with erosion, the long-term evolution of landscapes, the influence of climate and material properties on erosional processes, and low-temperature thermochronometry. His best-known work includes the behavior of active faults in California, transpression along the San Andreas fault, the role of glaciers in eroding active orogens in southeast Alaska, and the Cenozoic evolution of the Appalachian Mountains. Dr. Spotila is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America (GSA) and has served in numerous professional service roles, including four years as Science Editor of GSA’s flagship publication Geology.
Dr. Spotila has a long record of dedicated teaching at Virginia Tech. He has taught nearly 6,000 students, including in a large general-education lecture, Introduction to Earth Science, a field methods course for undergraduates, the Department’s Senior Seminar capstone course, and many other graduate-level courses. For his teaching, Dr. Spotila was awarded Virginia Tech’s William E. Wine Award for Faculty Achievement in 2022 and a Certificate of Teaching Excellence from the College of Science in 2021. Of all of his professional experiences, Dr. Spotila has found teaching undergraduate students about geology and being in the field to be the most rewarding.
Dr. Spotila holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Geology from the California Institute of Technology (1998, 1995) and a B.S. in Geology from Boston College (1992).