Awards

The International Standing Committee on Thermochronology gives three awards for outstanding contributions to the global thermochronology community: the Dodson, Laslett, and Charles & Nancy Naeser Prizes. The award winners for this cycle have been announced, and there will be a formal awards ceremony held during the meeting to honor the awardees.

2020 Laslett Prize recipients: Diane Seward and Barry Kohn

The Laslett prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person(s) deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to the field of fission track thermochronology. The prize is named after, and was conceived to honor, Geoff Laslett, a pioneer of quantitative fission track analysis and an outstanding scientist and statistician. The 2020 Laslett Prize is awarded to Diane Seward and Barry Kohn in recognition of their sustained, enormous scientific contributions to fission track thermochronology and its application across the breadth of the geosciences over the course of their careers. Working on tephra in the early 1970’s in New Zealand they learned fission track analysis together and have remained colleagues and friends since then. They have applied fission track analysis to resolve problems related to structural geology, sedimentology, basin analysis and tectonics. In addition to their scientific contributions, they have been highly valued advisors to many students, collaborators, valued mentors for early career scientists, and have supported many younger scientists in establishing their own rewarding careers in thermochronology. This award recognizes them both for their own research, as well as their role in helping our community to advance, and for being exceptional role models for our community.

2020 Dodson Prize recipients: Richard Ketcham and Kerry Gallagher

The Dodson prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person(s) for their extraordinary contribution to the field of thermochronology and/or to the international community of thermochronologists. The prize was conceived and named in honor of Martin Dodson, the pioneer of quantitative thermochronology. The joint recipients of the 2020 Dodson Prize are Richard Ketcham and Kerry Gallagher in recognition of their long term, extraordinary contributions to make mathematically robust, yet user-friendly thermal history modelling tools available to the thermochronology community. Their continuous software development (e.g., Monte Trax, AFTSolve, HeFTy, and QTQt), incorporating fission track and (U-Th)/He data, has provided programs used by thermochronologists globally to derive thermal histories.

2020 Charles and Nancy Naeser Prize recipient: William Guenthner

This prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to an early career scientist who has made an outstanding and/or innovative contribution in any area of the field of thermochronology. The award is named in honor of Charles and Nancy Naeser in recognition of their groundbreaking fundamental work in the field of thermochronology over many years. The 2020 Charles and Nancy Naeser prize is awarded to William Guenthner in recognition of his contributions to the development of the zircon (U-Th)/He method, including the role of radiation damage on the kinetics of He diffusion in zircon. His research combines laboratory experiments with field methods and modeling to understand long-term thermal histories of orogenic belts and cratons, as well as detrital zircon.

Award Descriptions

Martin Dodson Prize

This prize is awarded on behalf of the thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person who has made an extraordinary contribution, in any way, to the field of thermochronology and/or to the international community of thermochronologists. The prize was conceived and named in honor of Martin Dodson, the pioneer of quantitative thermochronology, who died at age 78 on 27 June 2010.

Geoff Laslett Prize

This prize is awarded by the international thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person who is deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to the field of fission track thermochronology. The prize is named after, and was conceived to honor of Geoff Laslett, a pioneer of quantitative fission track analysis and an outstanding scientist and statistician, who died on 9th January 2010.

Charles & Nancy Naeser Prize

This prize is awarded on behalf of the thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to an early career scientist who has made an outstanding and/or innovative contribution in any area of the field of thermochronology. The award is named in honor of Charles and Nancy Naeser in recognition of their groundbreaking fundamental work in the field of thermochronology over many years. Eligibility requires the candidate to be actively engaged in the field and seven years or less out from their Ph.D. award (excluding periods of parental or unpaid leave during which the candidate was not working).

Previous Recipients
2018 Dodson Prize: Andrew Carter
2018 Laslett Prize: Günther Wagner
2018 Charles and Nancy Naeser Prize: Alexis Ault, Marissa Tremblay
2016 Dodson Prize: Peter Zeitler
2016 Laslett Prize: Charles (Chuck) W. Naeser
2014 Dodson Prize: Oscar Lovera
2014 Laslett Prize: Andrew Gleadow
2012 Dodson Prize: Martin Dodson

Nomination Procedure

The awards committee seeks nominations for each prize from community in general. This should be done to maximise reach using any appropriate advertising, email lists and social media etc. Requests for nominations will be accepted at any time, but a request for nominations should be announced and publicised widely in advance of each international meeting.
A nominations are normally submitted by an individual. A group of people who might wish to co-sign a joint nomination could also make a nomination. Any nomination must include a letter detailing the case for the nomination of the relevant prize. Nominations should be submitted directly to the awards sub-committee in confidence (via the chair). A nomination without a case for support cannot be fairly assessed and so will not be. An individual, or group, can only nominate one person for each award (so multiple single nominations for the same award will not be accepted, although joint awards may be considered if a case is warranted).
In past rounds some people asked to know who had already been nominated, so they might add their ‘vote’ to an existing nomination. We feel this is not feasible/desirable as it means confidentiality is breached and we wish to avoid “a general election” of an awardee. So we feel an AGU style approach, where nominations are received and reviewed in confidence and then kept in confidence by the awards committee, is appropriate. It is up to the individuals making nominations to decide whether they wish to inform the person they choose to nominate.
Awards sub-committee reviews and discusses all nominations and arrives at a final decision by consensus. Recipients of awards are then communicated to the organising committee of the forthcoming international meeting. If a difference of opinion between members of the awards sub-committee cannot be resolved (would be rare we hope, but could be for some reason) then this would be referred to the international standing committee for comment and input. If no consensus view is reached after this process, then a vote of all standing committee members decides the outcome (with chair of awards committee having a casting vote in case of deadlock).
Awards will normally be made every two years (to coincide with each international meeting). The awards sub-committee may choose to recommend no award if no suitable nominations are received.