Anke Friedrich BS’90 MS’93 is an endowed professor of geology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich where she established a Master’s degree program in geology, led international student field trips involving U students, and set up student exchange programs with several international institutions, including the U.

She is an adjunct professor at the U’s Department of Geology & Geophysics and in 2019 she received the department’s Distinguished Alumni Award. She played a crucial role in establishing one of the world’s first continuously operating space-geodetic networks, which served to monitor the tectonic activity around Yucca Mountain, the then-proposed nuclear waste repository site. Anke volunteered for the Salt Lake Olympic Games before moving to Potsdam and helping to establish the first research group in Active Tectonics at a geological institute in Germany. As a student, she was a member of the U’s alpine ski team, earning All-American honors by winning three individual NCAA championships in giant slalom and slalom.