Charlie Kerans is Goldhammer Chair of Carbonate Geology at the Department of Geological Sciences, and co-Principal Investigator of the Bureau of Economic Geology's Carbonate Reservoir Characterization Research Laboratory, Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin. Since 2006 Kerans has held an appointment at the Department of Geosciences as Goldhammer Chair of Carbonate Geology and offers courses in modern and ancient carbonate deposition and diagenesis as well as sequence stratigraphy. Areas of focus are carbonate sequence stratigraphy and reservoir characterization, with an emphasis on integrating outcrop analog information for improved understanding of the subsurface. Kerans has won 10 best paper/poster/oral presentation awards with co-workers and students, including two Wallace Pratt awards for best published paper in AAPG, and the Carlos Dengo award for best paper presented at the International AAPG in South Africa in 2008. In 2014 Kerans was named AAPG Grover Murray Distinguished Educator. He also was received the Society of Sedimentary Geology's second highest medal, the Francis J. Pettijohn Medal, for Distinguished Contributions to Sedimentology in 2014, and for 2017 the SEPM Honorary Membership Award At the Jackson School Kerans has won three Knebel teaching awards as well as the Walter Award.