Paul W. Layer, CNSM Dean, received his BS in geology from Michigan State University, and his MS and PhD degrees in geophysics from Stanford University. He spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, Department of Physics, and has been at UAF since 1989 when he was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics and the Geophysical Institute.He was awarded tenure in 1994 and promoted to professor of geophysics at UAF in 2000. Layer served as department head/chair for the Department of Geology & Geophysics from 1995 to 2003, and then again in 2007. In 2007 he was appointed associate dean of CNSM and in 2009, interim dean. He also served as a faculty senator, president-elect and president of the UAF Faculty Senate. He has chaired the university-wide promotion and tenure committee, and was co-chair of the provost search committee and the chair of the graduate dean search committee. Layer has also been chair and is currently a member of the Alaska Geologic Mapping Advisory Board, State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.Layer is head of the Geophysical Institute's Geochronology Laboratory which he continues to run. His research focuses on use of the 40-argon /39-argon dating technique to investigate geological and geophysical problems in Alaska and elsewhere. Applications include determining the age of plutonism and tectonic events, dating of volcanoes in Alaska and Mexico, and constraining the time of formation of mineral deposits.Layer has coauthored more than 100 papers and been involved in international collaborative projects with scientists from Russia, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Sweden and South Africa. He has supervised eight graduate students and numerous undergraduate research projects. Layer teaches courses on general geology, geochronologic methods, and on the use of statistical methods in the geosciences. He continues to teach one class per semester.