Kansas State University

The Department of Geology is pleased to introduce a new member: Dr. Huan Cui. Dr. Huan Cui is an Assistant Professor of Sedimentology in the Department of Geology at Kansas State University. He joined K-State in the summer of 2024. He conducts multidisciplinary research that integrates sedimentology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, and paleontology to investigate global and planetary changes in deep time. At K-State, he will be teaching GEOL630 Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, GEOL540 Geologic Record of Climate Change, GEOL581 Principles of Paleontology, GEOL102 Earth Through Time, and GEOL730 Petroleum Geology.

Huan pursued his doctorate at the University of Maryland using field and lab work to study the environmental context of early animal evolution. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree in 2015, he moved to Wisconsin (2016-2018), Brussels (2018-2020), and Paris (2020-2022) for postdoctoral research. Prior to K-State, he held an Assistant Professor position at Mississippi State University (2022-2024).

Huan was born and raised from a working-class household at Renqiu (Hebei Province, China) – a small oil city well known for its petroliferous Mesoproterozoic carbonate reservoir. As a first-generation college student, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees – both in Geology – from Southwest Petroleum University (Chengdu) and Peking University (Beijing), respectively. He lived in China until 2011.