The achievements of three of our RiftVolc investigators have been recognised in a recent spate of prizes!

Juliet Biggs, Reader at the University of Bristol, has been announced as a 2018 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner, recognising her outstanding research in volcanology to date and future potential.

Juliet studies the physics by which plate boundaries develop by studying active volcanoes and earthquakes. Her work on Africa’s Great Rift Valley has demonstrated the relative role played by volcanoes, magma intrusions and faults during continental rifting.

Globally, she has discovered that many volcanoes previously believed to be dormant are actually restless, and investigated the link between deformation and eruption, and the mechanisms for coupled eruptions. Her work has changed the perception of geophysical hazards in Africa and the way in which volcanoes are monitored and modelled globally.

Juliet will use the prize to investigate the mechanisms that drive volcano deformation globally, by exploiting the new wealth of satellite data. This will include methods for combining satellite deformation and gas measurements to provide a new perspective on the role volatiles play in eruptions, and using deep learning tools to interrogate large datasets.

Tamsin Mather, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, meanwhile received the 2018 Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society.

This award recognises her achievements in the field of volcanology as well as her ability to communicate with the public.  Tamsin delivered the Rosalind Franklin Award Lecture on 18 October, speaking on how lessons learned sitting on the edge of an active volcano today can give us insights into some of the most profound environmental changes in geological history.  With her award, Tamsin will now be implementing a project that raises the profile of women in STEM.

Finally, our congratulations go to the 2019 Thermo-Fisher Scientific VMSG awardee, Dr Marie Edmonds, Reader in Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

This award is bestowed annually on an individual who has made a significant contribution to our current understanding of volcanic and magmatic processes, and Marie will give the VMSG keynote lecture in January 2019.

Marie also won the 2017 Wager Medal from IAVCEI.

The Wager Medal honors the memory of Professor Lawrence Rickard Wager of the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, who was born in 1904 and died in 1965. Professor Wager is best known for the discovery of the Skaergaard layered intrusion and the first detailed structural, mineralogical and petrological study of such intrusions. The medal is given every two years (i.e. at both Scientific and General Assemblies, to a scientist up to 15 years after Ph.D acquisition, who has made outstanding contributions to volcanology, particularly in the eight-year period prior to the Award.