ASU geo's take home awards

Faculty and students at the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration have been pulling in national and international awards lately.

Kelin Whipple [top, right], a professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, has received the European Geosciences Union's 2008 Ralph Alger Bagnold Medal for his work in geomorphology. Kelin's work "shows how the interaction of tectonics and river incision influences the morphology of mountain regions." [right: Kelin Whipple]

The Geological Society of America has chosen Philip R. Christensen, director of ASU's Mars Space Flight Facility on the Tempe campus, to receive its G.K. Gilbert Award. He will be formally presented with the award at the Society's annual meeting in October 2008.

The Gilbert Award, bestowed annually by the Society's Planetary Sciences Division, is for "outstanding contributions to the solution of fundamental problems in planetary geology in the broadest sense." [right: Phillip Christensen]

Nicolas Schmeer, received the Outstanding Student Paper at the December AGU meeting in San Francisco, for his presentation "Upper mantle discontinuity topography from and thermal and chemical heterogeneity," in the Study of the Earth's Deep Interior Section (SEDI)

Melissa Bunte, a second year graduate student working toward her Master of Science degree in Geological Science in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, was recently honored for her presentation at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). Her presentation, "Geologic Mapping of the Zal Region of Io," was selected for Honorable Mention in the poster presentations for the 2008 Stephen E. Dwornik Planetary Geoscience Student Paper Awards.