Acceptance of the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America for 2006

Abstract

Alex, thank you for your kind words—all the more meaningful coming from a good friend and colleague. Concerning the UNM English major and the poetry contest, he went to Edinburgh and finished third. More importantly, he now has a new perspective on the relation of science to literature. Every research group should have a poet laureate. This is a moment when one reflects on their career and whom they should thank. For me, it is certainly the collaborators from different disciplines over many years. Some are here today in this first session—Alex Navrotsky, Lumin Wang, Bill Weber and Allison MacFarlane. Each of these four come from a different sub-discipline—and each have added considerable breadth to our research interests and capabilities. Other colleagues and collaborators will appear in later sessions—all were important to our research program. I certainly want to acknowledge the talented group of graduate students and post-docs who have been members of the research group. Bryan Chakoumakos was the first post-doctoral fellow, followed Takashi Murakami, Janusz Janeczek Wiliang Gong, Peter Burns, Mostafa Fayek, Shixin Wang, Donggao Zhao, Keld Jensen, Satoshi Utsunomiya, and Jie Lian. The first Ph.D. graduates were Mike Jercinovic and Greg Lumpkin, followed by Mark Miller, Ray …