2024 Division Awards for Outstanding Geobiologists
Every year the GBGM executive committee selects exceptional scholars to receive awards for their accomplishments in research, education/mentoring, and service in geobiology. This year we had an exceptional list of nominees so thanks to all those who nominated someone!
We are pleased to announce that the 2024 awards go to Nagissa Mahmoudi (pre-tenure), Eva Stüeken (post-tenure), and Alan Jay Kaufman (distinguished career). Please check out their brief biographies below and explore their websites for further details about their research.
Pre-Tenure Award Recipient: Nagissa Mahmoudi (McGill University)
Dr. Nagissa Mahmoudi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University. She combines experimental microbiology and molecular biology along with novel isotopic approaches to decipher what heterotrophic microbes are "eating" and understand the principles that underlie "why". Her work is important for understanding how microbes mediate the fate and transformation of organic compounds in coastal and marine environments. Recently, she has begun exploring the evolution of heterotrophic microbes and their impact on elemental cycling in the ancient oceans.
Post-Tenure Award Recipient: Eva Stüeken (University of St Andrews)
Dr. Eva Stüeken is a Reader (Associate Professor) in the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Her research focuses on the origin and early evolution of life and implications for the habitability of other words. She uses a combination of field work in Precambrian terrains, analytical geochemistry, laboratory experiments, and simple models to reconstruct paleoenvironmental conditions, nutrient fluxes and metabolisms over Earth's history. A particular emphasis of her work has been on the biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, including the development of methods to track nitrogen from the atmosphere to the biosphere and into the deep crust. More recently, she has begun exploring speciation of phosphorus in the igneous and sedimentary rock record.
Distinguished Career Award Recipient: Alan Jay Kaufman (University of Maryland)
Dr. Alan Jay Kaufman is a Professor of Geobiology and Geochemistry at the University of Maryland (UMD) where he has developed and maintained a stable isotope laboratory over the past 27 years. Previous to his appointment at UMD, Kaufman completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees with John Hayes at Indiana University and then continued as a Post-doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at Harvard University, collaborating with Andy Knoll, Stein Jacobsen, and Paul Hoffman. Jay's research highlights the co-evolution of life and environment. Through his field and laboratory focus on the stratigraphy, paleontology, and geochemistry of sedimentary rocks that accumulated across the most significant transitions in early Earth history, his integrated research has shed light on:
• The Great Oxidation Event (when atmospheric oxygen rose dramatically some 2.3 billion years ago) and its biological consequences;
• The extremes of climatic and environmental change associated with episodic Snowball Earth ice ages at both ends of the Proterozoic Eon;
• The Ediacaran Period evolution of macroscopic life in the aftermath of one of the greatest recorded perturbation of the carbon cycle;
• The shorter fuse for the Cambrian Explosion of Animals; and
• The spread of euxinia in epicontinental seaways as the cause of Late Devonian mass extinctions.
Kaufman's studies have carried him to far away places with strange sounding names, including Namibia, Siberia, Australia, and Brazil where his 2020-2022 Fulbright Global Scholar award supported the discovery of biomineralized sponge grade animals in both Cryogenian and Ediacaran strata associated with dramatic environmental changes in the world oceans. Jay's has advised 18 M.S. and Ph.D. theses, over 30 B.S. senior theses, and more than 50 undergraduate laboratory assistants over his tenure at the University of Maryland. He has been recognized for teaching at UMD, including the 2000 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the 2014 Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Award, and the 2022 Board of Visitors Creative Educator Award. In addition, Kaufman was a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Mercator Guest Professor in 2007-2008 and was inducted as a Geological Society of America Fellow in 2012.
