The
MSA
Award

The Mineralogical Society of America Award is intended to recognize outstanding contributions to the science of mineralogy by relatively young individuals or individuals near the beginning of their professional careers. Mineralogy is broadly defined and the candidate need not qualify as a mineralogist. Rather, their research outputs should be related to the mineralogical sciences and should make some outstanding contribution to them.

Excellence will be assessed in terms of significance and impact, originality, scientific and methodological soundness, and clarity of presentation of the individual’s research outputs. Scientific contributions may include peer-reviewed articles, books, conference papers, improvements to techniques, creation and curation of collections and databases. In addition to research quality and impact, candidates will also be assessed on their broader impacts, such as communication to the general public (including education), and advancing ethics, inclusiveness and social justice in mineralogy.  Committee evaluations will go beyond simple metrics such as the number of papers published in high-impact journals, numeric parameters such as h-index, and the amount of funding acquired. The candidate’s current or past nationality, or place of employment, shall not be considered. Current MSA Council members are ineligible for the award.

The work considered for the award must have been accomplished either [1] before reaching the age of 35; or, [2] within 7 years of the awarding of the terminal degree. If the former, the candidate must be 36 years old or younger on January 1 of the year the award is decided. If the latter, the award must be decided prior to December 31 of the seventh year past the terminal degree. These time limits are exceptionally extended by 18 months for the 2023 award, in recognition of delays to research caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The time limit can be further extended following consideration of circumstances which have interrupted the nominee’s career including, but not limited to, serious illness, child birth, care giver responsibilities, unemployment or employment outside the field. Such an extension should be discussed with, and approved by, the Committee Chair.

The recipient of the MSA Award receives a certificate, is made a Life Fellow of the Society, and gives a scientific presentation which is published in American Mineralogist.

1951 Orville F. Tuttle P, A
1952 Frederick H. Stewart P, A
1953 L.H. Ahrens
1954 Hatten S. Yoder, Jr.
1955 Julian R. Goldsmith
1956 George C. Kennedy
1957 Rustum Roy
1958 Charles E. Weaver
1959 Harry F.W. Taylor
1960 Donald L. Graf
1961 Joseph V. Smith
1962 Douglas S. Coombs
1963 Nobuo Morimoto
1964 William S. Fyfe
1965 Peter J. Wyllie
1966 David B. Stewart
1967 Alfred E. Ringwood
1968 Barclay Kamb
1969 W. Gary Ernst
1970 Bernard W. Evans
1971 Robert A. Berner
1972 Arthur L. Boettcher
1973 Paul Brian Moore
1974 James J. Papike
1975 Roger G. Burns

1976 Friedrich A. Seifert
1977 J.G. Liou
1978 J. Stephen Huebner
1979 Ho-Kwang Mao
1980 Susan Werner Kieffer
1981 Alexandra Navrotsky
1982 Robert M. Hazen
1983 David R. Veblen
1984 Bernard J. Wood
1985 John M. Ferry
1986 Antonio C. Lasaga P, A
1987 Donald J. DePaolo P, A
1988 Raymond Jeanloz P, A
1989 Michael A. Carpenter P, A
1990 Russell J. Hemley P, A
1991 Mark D. Barton P, A
1992 Jonathan Stebbins P, A
1993 Lukas Baumgartner P, A
1994 Ronald E. Cohen P, A
1995 Zachary S. Sharp P, A
1996 Donald B. Dingwell P, A
1997 Jillian F. Banfield P, A
1998 James M. Brenan P, A
1999 Yingwei Fei P, A
2000 Quentin Williams P, A

2001 Peter C. Burns P, A
2002 John M. Eiler P, A
2003 Guillaume Fiquet P, A
2004 Kevin M. Rosso P, A
2005 Tiziana Boffa-Ballaran P, A
2006 Daniel J. Frost P, A
2007 Richard John Harrison P, A
2008 James Badro P, A
2009 Thomas Patrick Trainor P, A
2010 Benjamin Gilbert P, A
2011 Motohiko Murakami P, A
2012 Karim Benzerara P, A
2013 Wendy Li-Wen Mao P, A
2014 Fang-Zhen Teng P, A
2015 Nicholas J. Tosca P, A
2016 Anat Shahar P, A
2017 Dustin Trail P, A
2018 Laura Nielsen Lammers
2019 Olivier Namur
2020 Jin Liu
2021 Chenguang Sun
2022 Benjamin Tutolo
2023 Shaunna Morrison
2024 Denis Fougerouse
2025 Priyadarshi Chowdhury