Rate My Professor Michael McGlue

Michael M. McGlue is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky, where he holds the Alumni Endowed Professorship and the Pioneer Natural Resources Professorship in Stratigraphy and Paleoenvironmental Analysis. He serves as the State Geologist and Director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, and directs the Pioneer Stratigraphy and Paleoenvironments Laboratory. As a paleolimnologist and stratigrapher, McGlue's research group employs sediments and fossils from lake systems, reservoirs, and other inland water bodies to address key questions in hydroclimate change, biodiversity evolution, fisheries conservation, human-landscape interactions, natural hazards, and climate resilience. His expertise spans paleolimnology, paleoclimatology, Quaternary studies, environmental geophysics, surface processes, and geological records of environmental change in lakes and wetlands. Current investigations focus on regions including the East African Rift Valley (Tanzania, Malawi, Uganda), Pantanal wetlands (Brazil), eastern Sierra Nevada (California), Grand Teton National Park (Wyoming), and southern Black Hills (South Dakota).

McGlue received his B.S. in Geology from Washington and Lee University, M.Sc. in Earth Science from Syracuse University, and Ph.D. in Geosciences from the University of Arizona in 2011. Prior to his appointment at the University of Kentucky, he held a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellowship at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. His prolific publication record includes recent works such as "A high-resolution record of Late Holocene drought in the eastern Sierra Nevada (California, USA) from June Lake carbonate geochemistry" (Lyon et al., 2025, Quaternary Research), "Pantanal Basin river muds from source to sink: compositional changes in a tropical back-bulge depozone" (Lo et al., 2024, Sedimentologika), "Middle and Late Holocene paleolimnological changes in central Lake Tanganyika: Integrated evidence from the Kavala Island Ridge (Tanzania)" (Domingos-Luz et al., 2024, The Holocene), and "Holocene paleoenvironmental history of Jackson Lake (Grand Teton National Park, USA) deduced from CHIRP seismic reflection and radiocarbon-dated sediment cores" (Dilworth et al., 2024, Quaternary Science Reviews). McGlue has been recognized with the PRF Doctoral New Investigator Grant in 2014 and the Institute on Teaching Mentoring-National Faculty Mentor of the Year award in 2022.