Dr. Kate Pound

Kate is a geologist with research and teaching interests across geology and hydrology, focusing particularly on Minnesota.  Her research interests center around provenance studies, stratigraphy, and tectonics, especially the use of petrography and mineral geochemistry to decipher source-area regional geologic histories and sedimentation records.

Kate has worked in New Zealand, Australia, Alaska, California, and Mexico. Kate’s current research includes work on Conglomerates and the transport and abrasion of boulders during transport.  Kate is a registered Professional Geologist in the State of Minnesota (License # 30500). Kate taught at St. Cloud State University for 19 years, followed by a year at North Hennepin Community College (2021-2022), and two years at Gustavus Adolphus College (2023-2025). Starting in July 2025 she will be based at Hamline University.

Kate is actively involved in Earth Science Education and outreach; she works with pre- and in-service teachers, and was a lead instructor for the TIMES project (Teaching Inquiry-based Minnesota Earth Science) since 2002-2018, and is involved with the development of hands-on activities for classrooms and labs at the K-12 and undergraduate level. Kate is part of the Earth Science Teacher Education Program (ESTEP) funded by an LCCMR Grant. Kate is also part of another LCCMR grant ‘Teacher Field School – Nature-based learning Teacher Retreats‘ run through Hamline University. 

Kate participated in ANDRILL (the NSF-funded Antarctic Geologic Drilling Project) in 2006/2007, and is a co-author of a Lab Textbook ‘Reconstructing Earth’s Climate History Inquiry-based Exercises for Lab and Class (St. John, K., Leckie, R.M., Pound, K., Jones, M., and Krissek, L., 2012). The second edition of this textbook is available through Wiley Blackwell.

Kate (with Drs. Srock and Petzold) received the St. Cloud State University Hellervik Prize ($10,000) in 2015 for her research project titled ‘Stream Transport of Cobbles and Boulders: How Fast and How Far?’ This research is ongoing.

Together with Dr. Kirstin Bratt, Kate received the Saint Cloud State Miller University Miller Scholar Award 2015/2016 ($10,500) for the project ‘Poetry of Place: Pedagogy and Anthology’

Kate completed her undergraduate degree in geology at Middlebury College and her PhD at the University of Otago, New Zealand. She completed post-doctoral research at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.