Barry Voight

Voight's father was professional golf player Elmer "Elmo" Voight (1909–1973), a leader in the effort to break the color barrier in golf, and his mother Barbara (1910–1995) was a teacher and swim instructor.

Voight and his brothers grew up playing golf, and Barry also developed an interest in swimming.

Barry Voight (born 1937) is an American geologist, volcanologist, author, and engineer.

Born in 1937, Voight grew up in Yonkers, New York.

His brothers are actor Jon Voight and songwriter Chip Taylor, actress Angelina Jolie is his niece, and musician James Haven is his nephew.

Barry and his wife Mary Anne (née Verdisco) have two daughters, Lisa and Barbara.

Voight graduated from Archbishop Stepinac High School in 1955.

After high school, Voight pursued a 5-year intensive dual-degree program at the University of Notre Dame, studying landslips along Lake Michigan and receiving undergraduate degrees in geology in 1959 and in civil engineering in 1960.

He earned his master's degree in civil engineering from Notre Dame in 1961.

Voight attributes his interest in science to his mentors at Notre Dame, professors Ray Gutschick and Erhard Winkler.

Voight began teaching in 1961, serving as a teaching assistant at the University of Notre Dame while pursuing his master's degree in civil engineering.

From 1961 to 1963, he served as a teaching assistant at Cornell and Columbia.

After earning his Ph.D. at Columbia University, Voight worked as a professor of geology at several universities, including Pennsylvania State University, where he taught from 1964 until his retirement in 2005.

He remains an emeritus professor there and still conducts research, focusing on rock mechanics, plate tectonics, disaster prevention, and geotechnical engineering.

In 1964, he joined the faculty at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) as an assistant professor of geology, becoming a full professor of geology and geotechnical engineering in 1978.

After spending one year studying at Cornell University, Voight transferred to Columbia University, where he graduated with a Ph.D. in geology in 1965, studying rock mechanics and structural geology under Fred Donath.

While at Columbia, Voight was named a President's Fellow, and taught a lecture course called "Geology for Engineers".

Voight performed work in 1971–1973 for the United States Bureau of Mines.

During his career, he also lectured as a guest professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands in 1972, working under Jacques Dozy, and served as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 1973 and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1981.

Still an emeritus professor at Penn State, he initiated an endowment under his name to contribute to the education of volcanic hazard specialists from developing countries.

In 1978, he published the first volume of a treatise on avalanches, titled Rockslides and Avalanches.

In April 1980, Voight's publications on landslides, avalanches, and other mass movements attracted the attention of Rocky Crandell of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), who asked him to look at a growing bulge on the Mount St. Helens volcano in the state of Washington.

Voight foresaw the collapse of the mountain's north flank as well as a powerful eruption.

His predictions came true when St. Helens erupted in May 1980; Voight was then hired by the USGS to investigate the debris avalanche that initiated the eruption.

After his work at Mount St. Helens brought him international recognition, Voight continued researching and guiding monitoring efforts at several active volcanoes throughout his career, including Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia, Mount Merapi in Indonesia, and Soufrière Hills, a volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

For his research, publications, and disaster prevention work as a volcanologist and engineer, Voight has been honored with numerous awards, appointments, and medals.

After the second volume was released in 1980, the work became a benchmark in studying avalanches and other forms of mass movement.

A month prior to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Voight was contacted by Rocky Crandell, a United States Geological Survey (USGS) employee working in the Vancouver office near the mountain.

Crandell sought Voight's expertise in landslides, hoping Voight would opine on a growing bulge, 270 ft long, which had emerged on the mountain's north face.

In his reporting to Crandell and his associates, Voight said that the bulge could fail and collapse the volcano's entire north sector.

He suggested they begin monitoring the rate of movement of the bulge, worried that the collapse could trigger an eruption.

He also advised hiring a local surveyor to take measurements, offending several of the geologists.

Shortly after, Voight left the mountain and returned to teaching classes at Penn State.

Before the eruption, he had sent his full report to the USGS, summarizing his predictions, depicting the failure of the bulge and the collapse of the mountain's north side followed by a violent eruption.

After a magnitude 5.1 earthquake centered directly below the north slope caused that part of the volcano to slide, Mount St. Helens erupted, causing $1.1 billion in damage and killing 57 people.

After the eruption, Voight accepted a position as a consultant for the USGS.

He led the investigation into the volcano debris avalanche which had occurred during the eruption, guiding other volcanologists including Harry Glicken, who built upon Voight's preliminary research to create his report "Rockslide-Debris Avalanche of May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens Volcano, Washington" (1996).

Voight's work won him international renown, and he later cited his experiences there as "career-changing".

Voight taught at Penn State for more than four decades, retiring from teaching in June 2005 but continuing his research.

While at Penn State, Voight had a joint affiliation with the school's Department of Mineral Engineering and taught courses in physical geology, mechanics of geological materials, and volcanology.