The Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society, the top prize in our field for contributions to meteoritics, was awarded to Wash U’s Katharina Lodders for 2021. It’s hard to overstate Katharina’s contributions to cosmochemistry. Her papers on the Solar System abundances are the most cited works in our field. Though her official affiliation is with Earth & Planetary Science, I consider her a part of our department too as she’s been a long-time collaborator with us and other research groups in physics. I’ve benefited personally from Katharina’s enormous expertise across planetary science and astrophysics — she is always willing to talk and guide me in the right direction on a new research question.
With both the Leonard Medal and Nier Prize for 2021, by Katharina and Nan, Wash U is clearly a world-leading institution in meteoritics and cosmochemistry.