Awards & Special Lectures

The European Association of Geochemistry, through its awards, fellowships and special lectures, seeks to recognize outstanding contributions to geochemistry. The honors bestowed on our awardees recognize exceptional contributions at different career stages (see the criteria for individual awards below). We are committed to promoting the diversity of our awardees, to recognizing a wide range of different types of exceptional contribution, and we acknowledge the different career paths that lead to the achievement of such contributions.

2025 Medallists

2025 H.C. Urey Award

Donald Sparks

University of Delaware, USA

Donald Sparks is a leading scholar in geo- and soil chemistry, having contributed widely and deeply to our understanding of reactions at the solid-water interface. He was a pioneer of chemical kinetic and spectroscopic techniques for illuminating reactions within soils and sediments. He helped lead the use of X-ray absorption spectroscopy for discerning metal binding and, later, the chemical characteristics of soil organic matter. While being a prolific and impactful scholar, Prof. Sparks’s advising and mentoring is possibly even more impressive. He is also a prominent leader in the scientific community, playing a vital role in several societies.
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2025 Science Innovation Award

Christine Putnis

University of Münster, Germany

Christine Putnis is a seminal scientist in the field of fluid-rock and fluid-mineral interface geochemistry. Specifically, she has shown that interface-coupled reprecipitation is generally how a solid re-equilibrates in the presence of the chemical evolution of the overlying fluid phase. She is also the leading expert internationally in mineral growth inhibition via various organic moieties, as well as both mineral dissolution and growth processes via natural and anthropogenic chelators. While Prof. Putnis has built a highly impactful body of research, equally important to her is being exceptionally generous with her time to help others in their research endeavors.
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2025 F.G. Houtermans Award

David V. Bekaert

Université de Lorraine, CNRS, CRPG, France

David V. Bekaert is recognized for exceptional advances in geochemistry and cosmochemistry. He developed, with colleagues at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the sub-permil analysis of noble gases in volcanic gases, leading to unprecedented insight into mantle geodynamics. Thanks to noble gas analysis of lunar material, he evidenced contributions of comets to the Earth-Moon system.
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2025 Special Lectures

2025 P. Gast Lecturer

Helen Williams

University of Cambridge, UK

Helen Williams is Professor of Geochemistry and Planetary Science at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her research interests center around the application of non-traditional stable isotope systems to understanding the formation and evolution of planetary interiors, focusing on topics such as accretion, core formation and the evolution of mantle redox state, isotopic tracing of depleted and enriched mantle components, element cycling and the oxidation state of subduction zones and the secular evolution of the Earth’s mantle.
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2025 R. Berner Lecturer

Benjamin Mills

University of Leeds, UK

Benjamin Mills has made fundamental advances in understanding the evolution of the Earth and its habitability through time. He is at the forefront of the paleo-biogeochemical modelling discipline, where his Earth Evolution Modelling Group continue to adapt and extend Berner’s original modelling approach.
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EAG Awards

H.C. Urey Award: the society’s highest honor, recognizes outstanding contributions advancing geochemistry over a career. The award is based on scientific excellence as well as the broader impacts candidates have made in their careers to date.

Science Innovation Award: recognizes mid-career scientists who have recently made an important and innovative breakthrough in geochemistry.

F.G. Houtermans Award: recognizes exceptional contributions to geochemistry by an early career scientist.

Distinguished Service Award: recognizes outstanding service made to the geochemical community, exceeding the expectations of normal service. Nominations are made by the EAG Council.

Joint EAG-GS Awards and Special Lectures

The following are jointly presented by the EAG and the Geochemical Society:

Geochemistry Fellows: honors outstanding scientists who have made major contributions to the field of geochemistry. The award is based on scientific excellence as well as the broader impacts candidates have made in their careers to date.

P. Gast Lectureship: recognizes to a mid-career scientist for outstanding contributions to geochemistry. Nominations are made by the EAG Council and GS Board.

R. Berner Lecture: recognizes a mid-career scientist on a topic associated with elemental cycling at the Earth’s surface.

An “outstanding / exceptional / profound contribution(s)” encompasses one or various combinations of the following contributions:

a series of publications (including any combination of papers, edited volumes, authored books, written reports, other writing) that represents outstanding contribution
an innovative breakthrough
teaching and training the next generation of geochemists
improvements to infrastructure and techniques
capacity building - especially in developing countries or emerging disciplines
significant contributions to building of the community such as through meeting organisation, building peer-networking groups, other positive initiatives, and tangible efforts that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion
work with policy makers to ensure that their decisions are grounded in rigorous science
curation of significant sample collections and databases of long-term scientific value
communication of the intrinsic excitement of our field to the general public, where innovative and / or connecting with traditionally underrepresented or underserved people will be considered a plus
exceptional editorial contributions

Career Paths

The European Association of Geochemistry recognizes that there are diverse research career paths, as well as the challenges of managing a research career alongside other personal commitments, possible chronic illness, and/or disability. When reviewing applicants’ eligibility and research experience, the societies will take into consideration - where reported with brevity in nomination packages - time spent working on a part-time basis and/or outside of the research environment. If a nominee has been reported to have worked part-time, they should briefly state the percentage of full-time equivalent hours that they observed and the time period it pertains to.

Where nominees have had a career break, worked outside of scientific research (where relevant to the nominee’s assessment category), taken formal periods of maternity, paternity shared parental and adoptive leave as the primary care giver, or extended/repeated sick or bereavement leave, this will be taken account of by awards committees. Each case will be considered individually.

Donald Sparks, University of Delaware, USA

Recipient of the 2025 Urey Award

DONALD L. SPARKS, S. Hallock du Pont Chair Emeritus and Francis Alison Professor at the University of Delaware, where he has spent his entire 45 year career. He is internationally recognized for his research in the areas of kinetics of geochemical processes, surface chemistry of natural materials, and impacts of climate change on cycling of metals, carbon, and nutrients in soil and water environments. Dr. Sparks pioneered the application of kinetics to soils, developing methods ranging over a wide time scale and elucidating reaction mechanisms for sorption, desorption, precipitation and dissolution processes. He was one of the first geoscientists to employ synchrotron radiation to determine sorption mechanisms of metals and nutrients at the soil mineral/water interface and speciation of metal contaminants in soils. One of the major discoveries made in these studies was that metals such as Ni and Zn could form mixed-metal aluminum hydroxide precipitates (layered double hydroxide phases, LDH) on mineral surfaces and in contaminated field soils. In a myriad of studies spanning over a 20 year period, the kinetics and mechanisms of LDH formation and stability were determined. Using innovative quick X-ray absorption spectroscopy, the Sparks group determined that the LDH phases could occur on minute time scales similar to two-dimensional adsorption processes. Once aging of the LDH phases occur, the metal (e.g., Ni and Zn) becomes sequestered such that its mobility and bioavailability is significantly diminished. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Sparks’ research has focused on the impacts of climate change e.g., flooding, sea level rise, and salinity on carbon complexation with minerals and cycling of toxic metal(loid)s and nutrients in the Earth’s Critical Zone. Synchrotron-based tools (STXM- NEXAFS) were used to determine associations of carbon with other elements in soils and carbon speciation. Additional studies used FT-ICR-MS to determine the temporal molecular fractionation of dissolved organic matter on iron hydroxide surfaces.

Dr. Sparks is the author of three textbooks, 12 edited books, and 370 refereed papers and book chapters. He is a fellow of five scientific societies, including the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry and he has been the recipient of major awards and lectureships including the Geochemistry Medal from the American Chemical Society, the Liebig Medal from the International Union of Soil Sciences, Pioneer in Clay Science award from the Clay Minerals Society, an Einstein Professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Soil Science Research Award from the Soil Science Society of America, the Environmental Quality Award from the American Society of Agronomy, and the Philippe Duchaufour Medal from the European Geosciences Union. Dr. Sparks was the recipient of the Alison Award, the highest faculty award, and an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Delaware. One of the highlights of his career has been the mentoring of 65 graduate students and 35 postdoctoral researchers. Dr. Sparks served as president of the Soil Science Society of America and the International Union of Soil Sciences and as chair of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee for Soil Sciences.

Christine Putnis, University of Münster, Germany

2025 Science Innovation Award medallist - Werner Stumm Medal

Christine V. Putnis is a geochemist working in the Institute for Mineralogy in the University of Münster, Germany where she has an apl Professor position. Since moving to Germany from Cambridge (UK) in 1996, she has carried out research using experimental and analytical methods, mainly atomic force microscopy, to investigate reactions at the mineral-fluid interface, specifically the mechanism of interface-coupled dissolution-precipitation and the formation of nanoparticles as a mechanism of crystal growth. The significance of this mechanism in the removal of toxic elements from solution, as a process for environmental remediation, has been presented in numerous publications. Effectively this research starts at the nanoscale and bridges the gap between nano-, micro- and large-scale Earth processes.

David V. Bekaert, Université de Lorraine, CNRS, CRPG, France

2025 Houtermans Award medallist

David V. Bekaert is a Junior Professor at the University of Lorraine (UL) in France, where he leads the Environmental Geochemistry teaching unit at the École Nationale Supérieure de Géologie (ENSG) and conducts research at the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (CRPG). He earned his M.Sc. (2016) and Ph.D. (2020) at CRPG under the mentorship of Dr. Laurent Tissandier and Prof. Bernard Marty. After completing his doctoral studies, he spent two years at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, USA, as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, collaborating with Dr. Peter Barry, Dr. Sune Nielsen, and Dr. Alan Seltzer. Upon returning to France, he joined Dr. Yves Marrocchi’s group as a postdoctoral researcher before being awarded a prestigious Junior Professor Chair at CRPG-UL (2022 to present). David is an isotope geochemist with a passion for mass spectrometry, analytical developments, and fieldwork, integrating newly generated data with experimental and numerical approaches to address fundamental questions, such as the origin of Earth's habitability. Throughout his early career, David has applied a range of isotopic tools (e.g., noble gases, water stable isotopes, δ¹⁵N, δ¹³C, δ⁵¹V, ¹⁰Be-¹⁰B) to explore fields including cosmochemistry, volcanology, mantle geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and climate science. At the core of his work is the use of noble gas isotopes to trace the origins and evolutionary pathways of volatile elements - such as carbon, nitrogen, and water - within terrestrial planets. To unravel the origins of terrestrial volatiles, David studies volcanic gas emissions, which provide direct insights into the deep Earth’s composition, where primordial volatiles acquired during planetary accretion have been progressively overprinted by surface-derived components introduced into the mantle via subduction. A central aspect of David’s work is the use of radioactive chronometers to establish temporal constraints on the degassing history of the solid Earth and the formation of the atmosphere. His research has contributed to a comprehensive understanding of the global cycle of terrestrial volatiles between Earth’s surface and interior, through processes like volcanism (degassing) and subduction (regassing). A significant milestone in his early career is the development of ultrahigh precision analysis of volcanic heavy noble gases using Dynamic Mass Spectrometry, made possible through a key collaboration with Dr. Seltzer (WHOI). This technique, which enables precision several orders of magnitude greater than conventional approaches, has only just begun to revolutionize our knowledge of mantle heavy noble gas compositions and their implications for the evolution of volatile elements across terrestrial reservoirs.