Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego Distinguished Professor Miriam Kastner was named a 2017 recipient of the International Conference on Gas Hydrates’ (ICGH) lifetime achievement award. The award represents the highest ICGH recognition and is given every three years to outstanding achievers in the area of hydrates.
Kastner joined Scripps in 1972 as only the second female professor in the institution’s history, and its first tenured female professor. Her main research interests are in chemical paleoceanography, the geochemistry of marine sediments and the implications for paleoceangraphic interpretations, and the origin of marine minerals formed in their present location, termed authigenic, which includes phosphates, dolomites, silicates, and act as potential recorders of seawater chemistry. Kastner’s research requires extensive fieldwork at sea, including the use of human submersibles, combined with thoughtful experiments and analytical and theoretical studies.
Kastner is one of three researchers to receive this year’s award that includes an inscribed plaque that will be presented at a banquet during the ICGH9 Conference being held in Denver, Colo. in June. ICGH brings together researchers involved in the study of gas hydrates.
Kastner is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, The Geochemical Society, International Association of Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry, and the Society of Sigma Xi. She is a recipient of the V.M. Goldschmidt Medal from The Geochemical Society, The American Geophysical Union’s Maurice Ewing Medal, the Society Economic Paleontologists Mineralogists’ Francis Shepard Medal. She has also served on many national and international advisory committees. She has authored over 180 peer-reviewed publications.
-- Annie Reisewitz
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