UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Kimberly Lau, an assistant professor in Penn State’s Department of Geosciences and an associate in the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, is being honored by the Geological Society of America (GSA) with its 2022 Donath Medal, or Young Scientist Award. Lau will receive the award at the GSA’s annual conference, which will be held in October in Denver.
The Young Scientist Award was established in 1988 to honor young scientists — age 35 or younger throughout the year in which the award is to be presented — for outstanding achievement in contributing to geologic knowledge through original research that marks a major advance in the earth sciences, according to the GSA.
“As an early career scientist, Kim has transformed our understanding of nontraditional isotopes in reducing environments and made major discoveries of the causes and consequences of oceanic anoxia in Earth history,” said Andrew Nyblade, professor and head of geosciences. “She is highly deserving of this award.”
The award, consisting of a gold medal called the Donath Medal and an honorarium, was endowed by Dr. and Mrs. Fred A. Donath. Fred Donath was a famed professor of geophysics and earth science.
“I am deeply honored to receive the Young Scientist Award from the Geological Society of America,” said Lau. “I am very grateful to my collaborators, research group members, advisers and colleagues for their support and for their hard work.”
Lau is a sedimentary geochemist who uses isotopes and modeling to understand the controls and feedbacks on biogeochemical cycles in Earth’s past. She uses geochemical clues in the marine sedimentary record to reconstruct environmental change in Earth's history, to evaluate the growing toolbox of geochemical proxies to understand how and why these changes occurred, and to develop models to investigate Earth system feedbacks.
Before joining Penn State in July 2020, Lau was an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming and an Agouron Geobiology Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Riverside. She received her bachelor’s degree in geology and geophysics with honors from Yale University and her doctoral degree in geological sciences from Stanford University.