Awards

2025 Dodson Prize to Jean Braun

The Dodson prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person for their extraordinary contribution to the field of thermochronology and/or to the international community of thermochronologists. The prize was conceived and named in honor of Martin Dodson, the pioneer of quantitative thermochronology. The recipient of the 2025 Dodson Prize is Jean Braun (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam) in recognition of his pivotal role in the fields of thermochronology, tectonics, and geomorphology. He developed numerical models and methods to interpret the geological and thermochronological records and constrains the physical processes at play in the Earth's interior and near its surface. Jean Braun’s research represents an outstanding contribution to the understanding of Earth systems and their dynamic behavior, including thermal structure of the upper crust, lithospheric deformation, surface processes and connections between the solid Earth and the biosphere.

2025 Laslett Prize to Takahiro Tagami

The Laslett prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to the field of fission track thermochronology. The prize is named after, and was conceived to honor, Geoff Laslett a pioneer of quantitative fission track analysis and an outstanding scientist and statistician. The 2025 Laslett Prize is awarded to Takahiro Tagami (Kyoto University) in recognition of his precious work about the understanding of zircon fission-track annealing kinetics and the applications of thermochronology to fault zone rocks.

2025 Charles and Nancy Naeser Prize to Birk Härtel

The Charles and Nancy Naeser Prize is awarded by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to an early career scientist who has made an outstanding and/or innovative contribution in any area of the field of thermochronology. The award is named in honor of Charles and Nancy Naeser in recognition of their groundbreaking fundamental work in the field of thermochronology over many years. The recipient of the 2025 Charles and Nancy Naeser prize is Birk Härtel (University of Calgary). The award recognizes Birk for his first-role methodological contributions to several thermochronometric methods. Among them, he laid the foundation of zircon Raman thermochronology, characterized new zircon (U-Th)/He reference material, emphasized the use of daugther-parent relationships providing guidelines for evaluating thermochronological datasets and identified phantom age components in the deconvolution of detrital age data.

Introduction

The deadline for receipt of nominations for the 2025 Dodson, Laslett, and Charles & Nancy Naeser Prizes has been extended to January 2, 2025. We encourage you to take the time to nominate candidates for these awards, especially early career scientists who have made outstanding and/or innovative contributions in any area of the field of thermochronology.

Nominations must be accompanied by a letter of support, which provides a thorough and considered argument for why the nominee should be awarded the relevant prize, clearly articulating how the candidate’s research has made a significant impact on the field of thermochronology. Please submit nominations to the chair of the Awards Subcommittee of the ISCT, Massimiliano Zattin (massimiliano.zattin@unipd.it). We thank you in advance for your efforts to nominate candidates for the Thermo2025 awards.

Award Description

Martin Dodson Prize

This prize is awarded on behalf of the thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person who has made an extraordinary contribution, in any way, to the field of thermochronology and/or to the international community of thermochronologists. The prize was conceived and named in honor of Martin Dodson, the pioneer of quantitative thermochronology, who died at age 78 on 27 June 2010. 

Geoff Laslett Prize

This prize is awarded by the international thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to a person who is deemed to have made an extraordinary contribution to the field of fission track thermochronology. The prize is named after, and was conceived to honor of Geoff Laslett, a pioneer of quantitative fission track analysis and an outstanding scientist and statistician, who died on 9th January 2010. 

Charles & Nancy Naeser Prize

This prize is awarded on behalf of the thermochronology community by the International Standing Committee on Thermochronology to an early career scientist who has made an outstanding and/or innovative contribution in any area of the field of thermochronology. The award is named in honor of Charles and Nancy Naeser in recognition of their groundbreaking fundamental work in the field of thermochronology over many years. Eligibility requires the candidate to be actively engaged in the field and seven years or less out from their Ph.D. award (excluding periods of parental or unpaid leave during which the candidate was not working).

Nomination Procedure

The awards committee seeks nominations for each prize from community in general. This should be done to maximise reach using any appropriate advertising, email lists and social media etc. Requests for nominations will be accepted at any time, but a request for nominations should be announced and publicised widely in advance of each international meeting.
  1. A nominations are normally submitted by an individual. A group of people who might wish to co-sign a joint nomination could also make a nomination. Any nomination must include a letter detailing the case for the nomination of the relevant prize. Nominations should be submitted directly to the awards sub-committee in confidence (via the chair). A nomination without a case for support cannot be fairly assessed and so will not be. An individual, or group, can only nominate one person for each award (so multiple single nominations for the same award will not be accepted, although joint awards may be considered if a case is warranted).
  2. In past rounds some people asked to know who had already been nominated, so they might add their ‘vote’ to an existing nomination. We feel this is not feasible/desirable as it means confidentiality is breached and we wish to avoid “a general election” of an awardee. So we feel an AGU style approach, where nominations are received and reviewed in confidence and then kept in confidence by the awards committee, is appropriate. It is up to the individuals making nominations to decide whether they wish to inform the person they choose to nominate.
  3. Awards sub-committee reviews and discusses all nominations and arrives at a final decision by consensus. Recipients of awards are then communicated to the organising committee of the forthcoming international meeting. If a difference of opinion between members of the awards sub-committee cannot be resolved (would be rare we hope, but could be for some reason) then this would be referred to the international standing committee for comment and input. If no consensus view is reached after this process, then a vote of all standing committee members decides the outcome (with chair of awards committee having a casting vote in case of deadlock).
  4. Awards will normally be made every two years (to coincide with each international meeting). The awards sub-committee may choose to recommend no award if no suitable nominations are received.

Previous Recipients

Year Dodson Prize Laslett Prize C&N Naeser Prize
2023 Mark Harrison Rex Galbraith Sarah Falkowski
Kalin McDannell
2020 Richard Ketcham
Kerry Gallagher		 Diane Seward
Barry Kohn		 William Guenthner
2018 Andrew Carter Günther Wagner Alexis Ault
Marissa Tremblay
2016 Peter Zeitler Charles (Chuck) W. Naeser
2014 Oscar Lovera Andrew Gleadow
2012 Martin Dodson
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