F.G. Houtermans Award | European Association of Geochemistry

About the F.G. Houtermans Award

The F.G. Houtermans award is bestowed annually by the EAG in recognition of exceptional contributions to geochemistry by an early career scientist. It is named in honor of Friedrich Georg Houtermans, a Dutch-Austrian-German physicist.

To be eligible, nominees must be within 12 years equivalent full time scientific employ from the commencement of their PhD, which must be completed.
Eligibility is determined by the status of the candidate at the close of the year in which nominations are received and not the year the award is presented; hence, for the 2022 F.G. Houtermans Award, candidates should have started their PhD in 2009 at the earliest (but see information on career breaks here).
Nominations of underrepresented groups are encouraged.

We are committed to promoting the diversity of our awardees, to recognizing a wide range of different types of exceptional contribution, and we acknowledge the different career paths that lead to the achievement of such contributions.

The award is presented annually at the Goldschmidt Conference. The award consists of an engraved medal, an honorarium (1000 Euros) and a certificate.

Recipient of the 2022 Houtermans Award:
Raffaella Demichelis

Curtin University, Australia

Raffaella Demichelis is recognized for her important contributions to fundamental geochemistry by applying both ab initio quantum mechanical techniques and force-field based molecular dynamics to understanding the nucleation and surface geochemistry of biominerals, such as calcium carbonate and calcium phosphate. Raffaella has emerged as a world leader in the application of computational methods to such challenging problems. Read more

The 2022 Houtermans Award Lecture will be presented at the Goldschmidt2022 Conference.

Former recipients of the Houtermans Award

2021 Paolo Sossi, ETH Zürich, Switzerland – Citation (video) by Hugh O’Neill and Frédéric Moynier and Acceptance (video) by Paolo Sossi
2020 Kun Wang, Washington University in St. Louis, USA – Citation by Frédéric Moynier and Response by Kun Wang
2019 Stefan Lalonde, CNRS / Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, France – Citation by Kurt Konhauser
2018 Morgan Schaller, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA
2017 Julie Prytulak, Imperial College London, UK
2016 Kate Hendry, University of Bristol, UK
2015 Caroline L. Peacock, University of Leeds, UK
2014 Liping Qin, University of Science and Technology of China
2013 James Day, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA
2012 Frédéric Moynier, Washington University in St. Louis, USA
2011 Maud Boyet, University of Clermont-Ferrand, France
2010 Karim Benzerara, University Pierre et Marie Curie, France
2009 Nathan Yee, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
2008 Nicolas Dauphas, University of Chicago, USA
2007 Steve Parman, Brown University, USA
2006 James Badro, Institut de Physique du Globe, France
2005 Mark E. Hodson, University of York, UK
2004 Albert Galy, University of Cambridge, UK
2003 Jess F. Adkins, California Institute of Technology, USA
2000 Gleb Prokrovsky, Geosciences Environnement Toulouse
1999 Eric Hauri, Carnegie Institute, USA
1998 Terry Plank, Columbia University, USA
1997 Ken Farley, Caltech, USA
1995 Marc Chaussidon, CNRS Nancy, France
1990 Michel Condomines, Geosciences Montpellier, France

An “outstanding / exceptional / profound contribution(s)” encompasses one or various combinations of the following contributions:

a series of publications (including any combination of papers, edited volumes, authored books, written reports, other writing) that represents outstanding contribution
an innovative breakthrough
teaching and training the next generation of geochemists
improvements to infrastructure and techniques
capacity building - especially in developing countries or emerging disciplines
significant contributions to building of the community such as through meeting organisation, building peer-networking groups, other positive initiatives, and tangible efforts that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion
work with policy makers to ensure that their decisions are grounded in rigorous science
curation of significant sample collections and databases of long-term scientific value
communication of the intrinsic excitement of our field to the general public, where innovative and / or connecting with traditionally underrepresented or underserved people will be considered a plus
exceptional editorial contributions

Career Paths

The European Association of Geochemistry recognizes that there are diverse research career paths, as well as the challenges of managing a research career alongside other personal commitments, possible chronic illness, and/or disability. When reviewing applicants’ eligibility and research experience, the societies will take into consideration - where reported with brevity in nomination packages - time spent working on a part-time basis and/or outside of the research environment. If a nominee has been reported to have worked part-time, they should briefly state the percentage of full-time equivalent hours that they observed and the time period it pertains to.

Where nominees have had a career break, worked outside of scientific research (where relevant to the nominee’s assessment category), taken formal periods of maternity, paternity shared parental and adoptive leave as the primary care giver, or extended/repeated sick or bereavement leave, this will be taken account of by awards committees. Each case will be considered individually.

Raffaella Demichelis, Curtin University, Australia

2022 Houtermans Award medallist

Raffaella Demichelis is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow and holds a Senior Lecturer appointment at Curtin University, in Western Australia. She has led award-winning research into the structure and nucleation of biominerals. By providing definitive evidence in favour of a new non-classical nucleation theory, she changed the way we think about the nucleation and crystal growth of minerals. She opened new perspectives in the description of complex minerals, including minerals presenting multiple structures – a new concept that she independently developed – and mineral nanotubes with peculiar stability versus size/chirality profiles. She has co-authored software packages and developed tools, both independently and in collaboration, which model with high accuracy challenging systems (e.g. mineral nanotubes; ions in water). These tools are used worldwide in academia and industry, across the broad fields of chemistry, geochemistry and mineralogy.

Raffaella is originally from Italy, where she obtained a PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Torino in 2010. During her master thesis and PhD, she worked under the supervision of Prof Roberto Dovesi on modelling the structure and properties of aluminosilicates and carbon and inorganic nanotubes via first principle methods. This work also includes the development and implementation of tools for modelling vibrational spectra and materials with curled structures. Part of this work received the Ernesto Fea award for the best master thesis in mineralogy from the Faculty of Science.

Soon after she moved to Australia for a post-doctoral position in Prof. Julian Gale’s group, where she received mentoring in career development, and training in developing potential models and in molecular dynamics techniques applied to mineral-fluid interfaces. After two years, she was successful in securing two subsequent competitive research fellowships (Early Career Curtin Research Fellowship, ARC Future Fellowship) on top of other university-based and national grants. Through this funding, Raffaella could start developing her independent academic career and building her research group. She currently leads an emerging team at Curtin University who does interdisciplinary research at the boundary between the fields of computational materials chemistry and geochemistry.

Raffaella spreads her enthusiasm for science through engaging with outreach and community building activities. She co-initiated networks in WA aimed to teach software skills to PhD students (through the Software Carpentry project) and the WA Women in Chemistry group (under the auspices of the Royal Australian Chemical Society), as well as she volunteers much of her time to visit schools and mentor kids to possible STEM career paths with the double purpose of also showcasing gender diversity in STEM.
As a culturally and linguistically diverse woman in STEM with caring responsibilities who has gone through significant and extended career breaks due to maternity and part time work, she has faced numerous barriers to career progression and is using her experience to advocate for a mentally safe, flexible and inclusive research environment, allowing for more sustainable and diverse career paths. Indeed, she contributes much of her time to equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives both locally and nationally.

Raffaella has received national and international recognition for her research and community engagement through being the recipient of the 2015 Caglioti prize for Early Career Chemists (Italian Academy of Science) and a 2020 WA Young Tall Poppy awardee.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Paolo Sossi, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

2021 Houtermans Award medallist

Paolo Sossi is a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow, based at the ETH Zürich since 2019 in the group of Prof. Max Schmidt. He holds both Italian and Australian citizenship, with his formative years spent in Adelaide, Australia, under the scientific tutelage of Prof. John Foden and Prof. Galen Halverson on the application of non-traditional stable isotopes to igneous systems. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2015 from the Australian National University under the supervision of Prof. Hugh O’Neill, combining high temperature experiments to calibrate isotopic fractionations observed in nature. From 2015 to 2018 he held an ERC post-doctoral position at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, where he was engaged with Prof. Frédéric Moynier on the cosmochemical applications of isotopic and elemental variations among meteorites.

Paolo’s research interests broadly lie in how the high temperature physico-chemical properties (structure, oxidation, geochemistry) of melts, minerals and vapours shape the composition and architecture of the terrestrial planets. To do so, he employs laboratory experiments to mirror geochemical processes, whose products are analysed by a combination of spectroscopic and mass spectrometric techniques in order to derive thermodynamic quantities and physical formalisms.

His early work focused on characterising the direction and magnitude of iron isotopic fractionation in igneous systems through analysis of mafic and ultramafic rocks and experimental analogues. He subsequently became interested in other isotopic systems (V, Cr and Zn) and exploited their differing geochemical properties to understand irradiative processes in the early solar system, conditions of the Moon-forming impact, and the delivery of moderately volatile elements to Earth. More recently, Paolo has been involved in determining the solution properties and vapour species of moderately- and highly volatile elements, the redox evolution of Earth’s mantle and the mechanisms for the production and loss of atmospheres around rocky bodies.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Kun Wang, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

2020 Houtermans Award medallist

Kun Wang is an assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Kun grew up in Tangshan, China and received a B.Sc. degree in geology at the China University of Geosciences, where he worked with Rong Liu on the Ningqiang carbonaceous chondrite and with Weibiao Hsu on Grove Mountain Antarctic meteorites. Kun then moved to the USA and received a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis in 2013, where he studied iron isotope cosmochemistry with Frédéric Moynier. After receiving an Origins of Life Initiative Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship, Kun moved to Harvard University and collaborated with Stein Jacobsen to develop a new method for potassium isotope analysis. In 2016, Kun returned to St. Louis joining the faculty of Washington University. In recent years, his research has been focused on various applications of K stable isotopes such as studying continental weathering and hydrothermal alteration; tracing subducted crustal materials and mantle heterogeneity; and understanding the initial physical and chemical conditions surrounding the formation and differentiation of the terrestrial planets.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Stefan Lalonde, CNRS / Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, France

2019 Houtermans Award medallist

Stefan Lalonde is a CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire Géosciences Océan, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer and Université de Bretagne Occidentale, in Brest, France. A Canadian raised in Nova Scotia and Montana, Stefan completed BSc studies at McGill University and obtained an MSc degree in Geomicrobiology (2006) and PhD degree in Geochemistry (2011) at the University of Alberta. Stefan’s research is focused on the evolution of the Precambrian surface environment and biosphere.

Stefan’s work has combined laboratory experiments and sedimentary geochemical data to understand the chemical composition of seawater in the Archean and Paleoproterozoic, with a particular focus on iron-rich chemical sedimentary rocks such as banded iron formations (BIF). During PhD work in Edmonton with Kurt Konhauser, and continuing during postdoctoral work in Brest with Olivier Rouxel, Stefan constructed large BIF geochemical datasets that helped constrain the evolution of marine nutrients and redox status in deep geological time, including the histories of phosphorus, nickel, chromium, uranium, cobalt, copper, and zinc.

Stefan joined the CNRS as a researcher at the Laboratoire Géosciences Océan in Brest in 2013. His focus turned to incipient oxidative weathering on the Archean to Paleoproterozoic Earth, including kinetics of mineral oxidation and microbial oxygen production. He elaborated novel models for early oxidative weathering by benthic microbial mat communities. He guided studies of fossilized microbial mats in the Barberton Greenstone Belt (S. Africa) that revealed colonization of the land surface ca. 3.2 billion years ago and indicated differences in carbon and nitrogen cycling between terrestrial and marine settings at that time. Stefan has also published on trace element uptake onto iron oxides and bacterial surfaces in natural and laboratory settings, on microbial silicification, and on paleoenvironmental applications of iron, molybdenum, and germanium stable isotopes.

Work in progress, funded by the European Commission and in close collaboration with Philip Fralick (Lakehead University), is aimed at understanding links between carbonate production, seawater composition, and photosynthesis in Archean shallow waters via field and drill core study of some of Earth’s oldest (Mesoarchean) carbonate platforms preserved in Northern Ontario, Canada.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Morgan Schaller, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA

2018 Houtermans Award medallist

Morgan Schaller is currently an assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, NY. After receiving dual Bachelors degrees in both Geology and Biology in 2005, he moved to Rutgers for an MS in hydrogeology and a PhD in Geochemistry (2012). Schaller’s interests are broadly in the history of the Earth system and changes in climate over long timescales. Morgan uses light stable isotopes to trace the interaction and transfer of elements through the atmosphere, biosphere, and solid earth, specifically linking geologic processes to the carbon cycle. He has investigated the atmospheric effect of ancient, continental-scale volcanic eruptions (Large Igneous Provinces), and subsequent changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases due to chemical weathering. The results of Morgan’s dissertation were published (with Dennis Kent, James Wright, and Paul Olsen) in a series of three papers where he reported (for the first time) clear empirical evidence for: 1) short-term Triassic pCO2 increase resulting from Central Atlantic Magmatic Province volcanism (Science 2011); 2) subsequent long-term pCO2 drawdown through chemical weathering (EPSL 2012); and 3) long-term pCO2 decrease resulting from drift of Pangea into Earth’s humid tropical belt (GSA Bulletin 2015). In 2014, he joined the faculty at RPI and in the following year built their Stable Isotope Lab.

Morgan’s current focus is largely on the changes in the concentration of major and trace atmospheric gases over long timescales with the goal of better understanding what ultimately controls the transfer of gases between the solid earth and the atmosphere. His most recent work is in developing a new analytical method for determining the concentration of gases in the ancient atmosphere using fluid inclusions in soil carbonates, and the discovery of impact ejecta at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (published in Science, 2016), changing our interpretation of that climatic event. With engaging colleagues and an enthusiastic group of graduate students at RPI, he aims to reconstruct the record of, and chip away at, the causes for the evolution of atmospheric oxygen concentrations through Earth’s history, and evaluate the specific climatic effects of large extraterrestrial impacts.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Julie Prytulak, Imperial College London, UK

2017 Houtermans Award medallist

Julie Prytulak is a Lecturer in the Earth Science and Engineering Department at Imperial College London. Julie is Canadian, with many formative years spent in the wide expanse of the Saskatchewan prairies before she received a B.Sc honors degree in Geology from Carleton University, Ottawa in 2002. She then moved across the continent and into the USA to complete an M.S. degree at Washington State University in 2004, working with Jeff Vervoort on the Hf-Nd isotope composition of subducting sediments. A relocation to the United Kingdom followed, and she received a PhD in 2008 from Bristol University, where she used short-lived uranium-series isotopes, (231Pa in particular), to determine the melt productivity beneath ocean islands with Tim Elliott. She then held a postdoctoral position at Oxford University, followed by a NERC fellowship at Oxford and Imperial College London. During her time at Oxford (2008-2011) she developed, alongside Sune Nielsen and Alex Halliday, the first protocol to precisely and accurately measure natural stable vanadium isotope variations. In 2013 she joined the faculty at Imperial College London as co-leader (with M. Rehkamper, D. Weiss and T. van de Flierdt) of the Mass Spectrometry and Geochemistry (MAGIC) isotope group.

Julie’s research can be broadly described as igneous geochemistry, and she employs an array of techniques including major and trace elements, radiogenic isotopes and most recently stable isotopes. Her primary research investigates the drivers of mantle melting and the subsequent evolution of such melts, most notably in intraplate and island arc settings. Her recent work focuses on the causes of stable isotope variations in vanadium and thallium during magmatic processes. In collaboration with many valued petrological, geochemical and geophysical colleagues, she aims to determine whether stable isotope variations in magmas are related to intensive source parameters such as oxygen fugacity, are dominated by crystal chemical controls and thus reflect mantle lithology, or are resultant from the input of isotopically exotic components.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Kate Hendry, University of Bristol, UK

2016 Houtermans Award medallist

Kate Hendry is a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. She received her MSci in Natural Sciences from Queens’ College, University of Cambridge, in 2004, before carrying out her DPhil in Antarctic Biogeochemistry at Oxford University with Ros Rickaby. After eighteen months of postdoctoral research in Oxford, she was awarded a Doherty postdoctoral scholarship in 2009 to work in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (with Laura Robinson, Olivier Rouxel and Tim Eglinton). In 2010, she published her first paper on silicon isotopes in biogenic opal, and was awarded a National Science Foundation Geology and Geophysics grant to continue this research as a co-investigator at WHOI. Since returning to the UK, initially as a Research Lecturer at Cardiff University before moving to Bristol, she has been awarded research grants from the Leverhulme Trust, the Natural Environment Research Council, the Royal Society and the European Research Council to continue her work on silicon isotopes, as well as trace metals and their isotopes.

Kate has been developing the use of silicon isotopes in deep-sea siliceous sponges in biomineralisation and palaeoceanographic studies since 2008. Her calibration work is based largely on sponge samples she collected on three oceanographic research cruises to Southern Ocean and Equatorial Atlantic. She has also worked with her colleagues on producing some of the first silicon isotope geochemical archives using sponge spicules from deep sea sediment cores to reconstruct past changes in oceanic silicon cycling. Her palaeoclimate work has focused on understanding changes in silicon cycling over the last deglaciation, working with Jerry McManus, Jim Hays, and Mark Brzezinski amongst others. She has worked in deeper geological time with Alex Halliday and colleagues, on coupled Southern Ocean diatom-sponge opal records from the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. Her current work includes understanding the links between biochemistry and isotope geochemistry in silicifiers on the microscopic scale, to the large scale spatial distribution of silicon and silicon isotopes in modern and past oceans.

Caroline Peacock, University of Leeds, UK

2015 Houtermans Award medallist

Caroline Peacock is an Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, UK. Caroline is originally from London, UK and holds a Bachelor of Science Honours and a PhD degree from the University of Bristol, UK. After graduating her PhD in 2005, Caroline did a short post-doc at the University of Bristol before becoming a lecturer in geochemistry in the School of Earth and Ocean Science at the University of Southampton, UK in 2006. In 2009 Caroline moved to the University of Leeds as a lecturer in biogeochemistry, and became an associate professor of biogeochemistry in 2013. Caroline’s research focuses on the biogeochemistry of metals in terrestrial and marine environments, with particular focus on the molecular-level processes that govern the distribution of metals between soils, sediments and natural waters. These processes ultimately control the abundance of metals in both modern and ancient environments, and are therefore key to understanding metal cycling on both a local and global scale. Caroline uses a combination of laboratory experiments, advanced synchrotron-based spectroscopic techniques and geochemical modeling to achieve her research goals.

You can find additional information about Caroline and her research group on her website .

James Day, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

2013 Houtermans Award medallist

James is from the county of Kent in England and holds Bachelor of Science and PhD degrees from the University of Durham. After graduation in 2004, James did a post-doc at the University of Tennessee, followed by a post-doc and subsequently a research scientist faculty position at the University of Maryland. James became an Assistant Professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, part of the University of California San Diego, in 2010. James’ research interests include understanding planetary accretion and differentiation, early Solar System formation and evolution, magmatic processes and the petrogenesis of igneous, volcanic and metamorphic rocks, and ore genesis processes. James applies stable and radiogenic isotope systems, trace element geochemistry, petrology and field observations to achieve his research goals.

Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.

Read the citation by Richard Walker, University of Maryland, USA

About the F.G. Houtermans Award

Recipient of the 2022 Houtermans Award: Raffaella Demichelis

Curtin University, Australia

Former recipients of the Houtermans Award

An “outstanding / exceptional / profound contribution(s)” encompasses one or various combinations of the following contributions:

Career Paths

Raffaella Demichelis, Curtin University, Australia

2022 Houtermans Award medallist

Paolo Sossi, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

2021 Houtermans Award medallist

Kun Wang, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

2020 Houtermans Award medallist

Stefan Lalonde, CNRS / Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, France

2019 Houtermans Award medallist

Morgan Schaller, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA

2018 Houtermans Award medallist

Julie Prytulak, Imperial College London, UK

2017 Houtermans Award medallist

Kate Hendry, University of Bristol, UK

2016 Houtermans Award medallist

Caroline Peacock, University of Leeds, UK

2015 Houtermans Award medallist

James Day, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

2013 Houtermans Award medallist

Recipient of the 2022 Houtermans Award:
Raffaella Demichelis