ANU graduate recognised for scientific achievements

ANU graduate, Professor Jillian Banfield, has been awarded two prestigious awards for her work as a biogeochemist and geomicrobiologist - the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science and the L'Oréal-UNESCO 'For Women in Science' award. Professor Banfield graduated from ANU in 1981 with First Class Honours in geology, before taking up graduate studies in earth and planetary sciences at John Hopkins University in 1986. She currently holds the position of Professor of earth and planetary science, of environmental sciences, policy and management, and of materials sciences and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and is also a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Franklin award has been granted in recognition of her discovery of the way microbes affect mineral formation and interact with the natural world. The work contributes to understandings of how life survives in unfriendly conditions and has implications for future efforts to find signs of life on other planets. The L'Oréal-UNESCO awards recognise leading women in science for their contributions to research and to society. Banfield will receive the 2011 Franklin award at a ceremony in Philadelphia next April, while the L'Oréal-UNESCO awards ceremony will take place at UNESCO's Paris headquarters in March.