Recipient of the 2020 Urey Award: Jillian Banfield

University of California, Berkeley, USA

Dr. Banfield is a pioneer in the area of geobiology, using state-of-the-art approaches in both earth sciences and biological sciences to lead to new understanding of how the intimate interactions of the microbiota help to define the geochemistry of our planet. Much of what we know about the microbiome of Earth’s subsurface stems from the interdisciplinary work of Dr. Banfield and her colleagues. By combining the expertise and skills of a trained geologist with the modern techniques and approaches of molecular microbiology, Dr. Banfield has provided us with a new appreciation of the role(s) of microbes in shaping the geochemistry of the Earth. Read more

The 2020 Urey Award medal lecture ‘Microbial Mediation of Watershed Biogeochemical Cycles’ was presented at the Goldschmidt 2020 Virtual Conference.

View the Citation by Ken Nealson and Response by Jill Banfield

Photo credit: Keegan Houser

Former recipients of the Urey Award

• 2019  Eric Oelkers, GET Laboratory, CNRS, France and University College London, UK
  Citation by Liane G. Benning
• 2018 Susan L. Brantley, Pennsylvania State University, USA
• 2017 Eiji Ohtani, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
• 2016 Klaus Mezger, University of Bern, Switzerland
• 2015 Albrecht W. Hofmann, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany
• 2014 Edward Boyle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• 2013 Igor Tolstikhin, Russian Academy of Sciences
• 2012 Alexander Halliday, University of Oxford, UK
• 2011 Donald E. Canfield, University of South Denmark, Denmark
• 2010 Charles Langmuir, Harvard University, USA
• 2009 François Morel, Princeton, USA
• 2008 Pascal Richet, IPGP, France
• 2007 Harry Elderfield, Cambridge University, UK
• 2006 Herbert Palme, Senckenberg Research Institute, Germany
• 2005 Alexandra Navrotsky, University of California, Davis, USA
• 2004 Harold C. Helgeson, University of Berkeley, USA
• 2003 Nicholas Shackleton, University of Cambridge, UK
• 2002 Grenville Turner, University of Manchester, UK
• 2001 Keith O’Nions, Imperial College London, UK
• 2000 Donald DePaolo, University of Berkeley, USA
• 1999 John Edmond, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• 1998 Jean-Guy Schilling, University of Rhode Island, USA
• 1997 Geoffrey Eglinton, University of Bristol, UK and John Hayes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA
• 1995 Samuel Epstein, California Institute of Technology, USA, Robert N. Clayton, University of Chicago, USA and Hugh P. Taylor, Jr., California Institute of Technology, USA
• 1990 Wallace S. Broecker, Columbia University, USA and Hans Oeschger, University of Bern, Switzerland