College of Letters and Sciences
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Rex Hanger
Professor

  • Department(s): GEOGRAPHY/GEOLOGY/ENV SCI
  • Office Location: Upham Hall 103
  • Phone: (262) 472-5258
  • Email: hangerr@uww.edu
Rex Hanger profile picture
Growing up as an "Army brat", my family moved many times from one military base to another for my father's career. By happenstance, in every location, I was always near localities where I could collect rocks and fossils outside, and so I've known I wanted to be a geologist/paleontologist since elementary school. My professional training began in the South at Texas A&M University where I received my B.S. and M.S. degrees in Geology. I then moved West, where I completed my Ph.D. in Paleontology at the University of California at Berkeley, which was followed by a cross-country trip back East for a post-doc in Paleobiology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. To complete my tour of all four geographic quadrants on the lower 48, I then traveled North and did a one-year Visiting Professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and finally landed my tenured position at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where I've taught now for 16 years. My research interests are in Late Paleozoic and Cretaceous marine invertebrate fossils and Recent freshwater gastropods, but I also have a fondness for the Ordovician of the Upper Midwest.

At UW-Whitewater, I teach the following courses:
Geology 204   Earth and Life History  GM  3 credits
Geology 300   Principles of Oceanography  GM  3 credits
Geology 307   Dinosaurs  GM  3 credits
Geology 317   Paleontology  3 credits
Geology 319   Stratigraphy & Sedimentation  3 credits
Geology 492   Field Studies in Geology  1-3 credits
Geography 330   Biogeography  3 credits