Terry C. Wallace Jr. was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and graduated from Los Alamos High School in 1974. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geophysics and mathematics from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, followed by a Master of Science and PhD in geophysics from the California Institute of Technology.
From 1983 to 2003, he was a professor at the University of Arizona. In 2006 Terry heard the call home and moved back to Los Alamos to become LANL’s Principal Associate Director for Science, Technology, and Engineering, then Principal Associate Director for Global Security. He served as the 11th Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory until his retirement in 2018.
In his off time, Terry is a marathon-style wilderness runner and avid hiker. He is a mineral collector, a hobby fostered by his father from an early age. Terry has visited mining communities and mineral localities across the Americas, and has written extensively on various aspects of mineralogy for amateurs. He is the author of the popular mineral book Collecting Arizona. As you can suspect, Gold is one of his favorite minerals.
In Oct. 2020, Terry made an invaluable presentation on “Gold—A Journey from the Big Bang to the Amazon.” (Updated Oct. 2021)