As an undergraduate at Indiana University, Anthony Hoch had dabbled in chemical engineering, economics, and psychology as majors before discovering the intoxicating combination of science and the outdoors that turned him on to the study of geology.
Hoch, an aqueous geochemist specializing in the interaction of water and minerals in surface and ground water, joined the Lawrence faculty in 1999 as an assistant professor of geology.
He has worked closely with the United States Geological Survey since 1993 and in 2000 was appointed to Hydrologist 12 with adjunct status in the USGS Water Resources Division, National Research Program. His research has produced a patent for the USGS for a method of growing calcium carbonate crystals of uniform size. That research is related to three published articles Hoch co-authored: "Calcite Crystal Growth Rate Inhibition by Polycarboxylic Acids" in the Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, "Hydrologic transience in a welded tuff aquifer, southwest Colorado: control by calcite mineralization in fractures" in Applied Geochemistry, and "An Assessment of calcite crystal growth mechanisms based on crystal size distribution" in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. He also contributed the chapter, "Calcite crystal growth rate inhibition by aquatic humic substances" in the 2001 book Proceedings of Advances in Crystal Growth Inhibition Technologies.
In June, 2001, Professor Hoch attended the Tenth International Symposium on Water Rock Interaction in Villasimius, Italy, where he presented the paper, "Water chemistry at Snowshoe Mountain, Colorado: mixed processes in a common bedrock."
Closer to home, he has worked with students at the Heckrodt Wetland Reserve in Menasha, Wisconsin, establishing a research lab and collecting baseline data. Collaborative student-faculty research on contaminant emplacement and migration in the ground water earned Faye Gilbert, '01, the "best student paper" award at the American Water Resources AssociationWisconsin Section annual meeting in March 2001.
Hoch's teaching was recognized in 2001 by his induction into the Project Kaleidoscope faculty for the 21st Century Network, a national initiative designed to develop a cadre of leaders committed to strengthening the teaching of undergraduates in various fields of science, mathematics, and engineering.