Renée Heilbronner, professor II ved Institutt for geologi ved UiT – Norges arktiske universitet ble tildelt Stephan Mueller-medaljen under en konferanse i Wien 19. april.
Renée Heilbronner og Stephan Mueller-medalsjen. Foto: Holger Stunitz, UiT / EGU
Stephan Mueller-medaljen er en anerkjennelse for fremstående prestasjoner innen tektonikk og strukturgeologi.
Prisen ble tildelt Renée Heilbronner, som er professor II ved Institutt for geologi (IG) ved UiT – Norges arktiske universitet, under European Geosciences Unions (EGU) konferanse i Wien 19. april.
Heilbronner jobber med digital billedanalyse for bedre å forstå deformasjonsprosesser i jordskorpen. Hun har vært ansatt ved IG siden 2015.
Juryens begrunnelse (på engelsk):
Renée Heilbronner is an outstanding and internationally leading scientist in the field of rock physics and Earth deformation.
She has distinguished herself by bringing extraordinary clarity and insightful perspective into the analysis of microstructures found in naturally and experimentally deformed rocks.
She pioneered a very original approach based on image analysis applied to rock deformation that forms the foundation for much of our current understanding of the influence of grain boundary structure on natural deformation.
The methods that Heilbronner developed have a tremendous impact on advancing our understanding of the strong link between microstructures and rock rheological properties.
Her work has numerous applications that cover the whole set of rock deformation mechanisms, from fracture analysis to quantification of diffusion and dislocation creep, and the whole range of objects that characterise deformation, from grain boundary geometry to crystallographic preferred orientations, including the reconstruction of the evolution of such structures with time.
Characteristically, her work uses stereological and statistical methods that were and are at the cutting edge of image analysis.
Her application of rigorous image analysis techniques has advanced our understanding of strain partitioning amongst component minerals, the effect of phase chemistry on deformation, and the production of amorphous materials during frictional sliding.
Heilbronner has educated a generation of students, equipped with an arsenal of analytical tools, many offered as freeware, from grain size characterisation to fabric quantification.
She also educated many senior researchers with her excellent short courses.
In 2014, she published a book on microstructures and textures of Earth materials, which is a seminal work for geoscientists interested in investigating processes in fields ranging from metamorphic petrology, to sedimentology and deformation analysis.
Finally, Heilbronner has also been very involved in creating better acceptance and working conditions of women in the scientific community.
For these reasons, she is a worthy recipient of the EGU 2016 Stephan Mueller Medal.
