2018 Nier Prize for Lydia J. Hallis

Abstract

The Nier Prize recognizes outstanding research in meteoritics and closely allied fields by young scientists, and Dr. Lydia Hallis is a very worthy recipient. Her unique contributions have been in using the hydrogen isotopic system to track the transfer of water through various planetary reservoirs. This work has yielded an impressive portfolio of publications on Mars, the Moon, and the Earth's mantle (listed at the end of this nomination), which bear testament to her novel and rigorous research in planetary science. Anyone from the UK who has met Lydia will immediately recognize from her distinctive accent that she was born and bought up in Yorkshire—a region of northern England that is described as “God's own county” (although only by its inhabitants!). After schooling in Sheffield, she moved to London to undertake a M.Sc. in Geology at Imperial College. It is here that she was taught by leaders in the field including Phil Bland and Sanjeev Gupta, but her interest in planetary science, and Mars in particular, was piqued during a summer internship at the Natural History Museum in London, where she studied the Nakhla meteorite under the supervision of Gretchen Benedix. Following graduation in 2006, Lydia started a Ph.D. project entitled “Petrological and Geochemical Investigations of Mare Basalts” under the supervision of Mahesh Anand (Open University) and Sara Russell (Natural History Museum). This thesis work generated her first publication, in Geochemica et Cosmochimica Acta. Following completion of her Ph.D. in 2010, Lydia joined the University of Hawai'i as a NASA astrobiology postdoc working with Geoff Taylor, Gary Huss, and Kazu Nagashima. At Hawai'i Lydia diversified from lunar geology into two areas that would shape her subsequent career—she began working on aqueous alteration of the nakhlites, initially focusing on the paired Miller Range meteorites, and she mastered the challenging technique of hydrogen isotope analysis by ion microprobe. Lydia's time in Hawai'i was highly productive, producing eight papers, on six of which she is first author. One of these papers, published in Science, describes hydrogen isotopic evidence for the presence of primordial water in the Earth's mantle. In addition to generating a great deal of interest in the scientific community, this paper was very widely covered by print and electronic media, and also led to Lydia describing her research results on the Discovery Channel, and the BBC television program The Sky at Night. In 2014, Lydia moved to the University of Glasgow on a prestigious European Commission Marie-Curie Fellowship. Entitled “Mars Volatiles,” this project developed the skills in Martian meteorites and hydrogen isotopes that she had acquired in Hawai'i. From the moment that she arrived in Glasgow it was clear that Lydia had the intellect and drive to succeed in her own research, but also the ability and personality to inspire undergraduate students through her teaching of geology and planetary science. One example of her ability as a mentor is that four undergraduate students who undertook final year research projects under her supervision (Tara Hayden, Aimee Smith, Benjamin Farrant, Lotta Kemppinen) are now undertaking a Ph.D. in other UK universities. Crucially, her return to the UK also enabled Lydia to indulge her passion for rock climbing, and for whippets, which are the dog-of-choice for anyone from Yorkshire. Lydia was employed by the University of Glasgow as a permanent lecturer in 2017, and since then has gone from strength to strength. Within just 18 months she has built a research group comprising four postgraduate students and one postdoc through winning external funding and by attracting early career researchers of exceptional talent and promise. At the same time she has taken on considerable management responsibilities within the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, chairing the first year of the Earth Science undergraduate program, and developing a new high-level course in Planetary Geology. Lydia's burgeoning reputation means that she is in demand as a keynote and invited speaker at international conferences (e.g., AGU, Goldshmidt), a member of grant review panels, and is also taking the lead in the Scottish Planetary Science Research Network (SPERO) and iMOST (the international Mare-sample-return Objectives and Samples Team). Lydia also lead the successful bid to host the 2020 meeting of the Meteoritical Society in Glasgow. As a planetary scientist of such ability and promise, it is my pleasure to present Dr Lydia Jane Hallis as the recipient of the 2018 Nier Prize of the Meteoritical Society.