Vetlesen Prize Ceremony Honors Two Distinguished Researchers in Earth Sciences

This yr, not one however two researchers had been celebrated for his or her pioneering scientific achievements at a ceremony for the celebrated Vetlesen Prize held April 26 at Columbia College’s Low Library Rotunda. The occasion was launched by Maurizio Morello, govt vp of the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, which created the prize, and emceed by Miles O’Brien, nationwide correspondent for PBS NewsHour and the reporter, producer, and director behind the brand new movie, Chasing Carbon Zero.

Established in 1959, the Vetlesen Prize is without doubt one of the highest honors within the Earth Sciences. At this yr’s celebration, it was introduced to Anny Cazenave and David Kohlstedt “for scientific achievement leading to a clearer understanding of the Earth, its historical past, or its relations to the universe.” (Cazenave was the 2020 Vetlesen Prize recipient, however her ceremony was postponed till now attributable to COVID-19.) The researchers every obtained a gold medal and a $250,000 award to commemorate their accomplishments over the previous a number of a long time and had been met with ample applause from the sharply dressed viewers.

Cazenave launched the viewers to one of many central questions in her present analysis: “How a lot will sea degree rise, globally and regionally, over the following a long time and past in response to ice sheet mass loss and ocean warming?” She detailed the primary time satellite tv for pc altimetry was mentioned in relation to oceanic measurements in a workshop by NASA again in 1969, and cataloged how a lot progress has been made within the subject and within the accuracy of house observations within the years since. The brand new problem, Cazenave informed the room, might be measuring sea degree rise on the coastlines all over the world, which may have the biggest societal implications and the place there are nonetheless many unknowns.

An emeritus scientist on the Laboratory of Area Geophysical and Oceanographic Research in France and the previous director of earth sciences on the Worldwide Area Science Institute in Switzerland, Cazenave is an professional in house geodesy—the examine of the Earth’s form and different traits from house—and a pioneer within the subject of satellite tv for pc altimetry. Her discoveries have improved our sensible understanding of worldwide sea degree rise and the way it has and can proceed to be affected by international warming.

Whereas introducing the following recipient, Maureen Raymo, co-founding dean of the Columbia Climate School and the director and G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, described Kohlstedt’s laboratory analysis into the mechanics of the deep Earth as falling beneath “essentially the most harmful sector of experimental physics.” Raymo additionally famous that whereas he formally retired in 2019, Kohlstedt has not stopped working—a press release he confirmed.

In his presentation, Kohlstedt mentioned his pivotal transition from finding out supplies science to a storied profession in geophysics, and the numerous postdocs and mentors who supported him alongside the best way. Kohlstedt is presently an emeritus professor of earth sciences on the College of Minnesota. Previously based mostly on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and Cornell College, he has spent a few years performing experiments to check the Earth’s mantle by duplicating its high-pressure, high-temperature situations within the lab and observing the outcomes on each atomic and scaled-up ranges to supply insights for eventualities potential in the true world. His group’s findings have contributed to many key earth sciences disciplines, together with structural geology, seismology, volcanology, and geophysics.

As Vetlesen Prize honorees, Cazenave’s and Kohlstedt’s names now perch atop an impressive and growing list of the good visionaries in earth sciences within the twentieth and twenty first centuries.