Lee A. Groat graduated from Queen's University with a B.Sc. (Honours, Geology) in 1982 and from the University of Manitoba with a Ph.D. in 1988. From 1988 to 1989 he was a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge University.

Professor Groat has been a faculty member at the University of British Columbia since 1989. Prof. Groat has served as the principal editor of two different international mineralogical journals: American Mineralogist, from 2001 to 2006, and The Canadian Mineralogist, from 2012 to 2022. From 2007 until 2021 he was Chair of the Commission on Gem Materials of the International Mineralogical Association.

In 2003 Prof. Groat was elected a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America, and in 2009 the new mineral groatite was named in his honor.

His main research interests are the geology of gem deposits, pegmatites, the crystal chemistry of minerals, and economic geology. Professor Groat has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He also edited the best-selling 2007 and 2014 “Geology of Gem Deposits” volumes and in 2022 co-wrote (with Dr. David Turner) the textbook “Geology and Mineralogy of Gemstones”.

Professor Groat will be reviewing the latest research on the origin of gem deposits and how to explore for them, especially in remote areas of the Earth.

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