Vernon F. Cormier is a Professor of Physics and Geophysics at the University of Connecticut. He received a BS from the California Institute of Technology and a PhD from Columbia University. His research has specialized in seismic wave propagation and deep Earth structure. He has served as an editor for the Geophysical Journal International and Physics of the Earth’s Interior. Among services to professional societies he has served the Seismological Society of America as Vice President and the American Geophysical Union as Secretary of the Seismology Section and Chair of the Study of Earth’s Deep Interior (SEDI) focus group.