We are delighted to announce the selection for the 2024 Pellas-Ryder Award. This award is jointly sponsored by the Meteoritical Society and the Planetary Geology Division of the Geological Society of America and honors outstanding first author planetary science papers by students. The award honors the memories of meteoriticist Paul Pellas and lunar scientist Graham Ryder.
Ren Marquez, who is a graduate student at Caltech, Pasadena, USA, is the winner of the 2024 Pellas-Ryder Award for the paper entitled “Snapshots of an Evolving Solar Nebula Recorded in Nucleosynthetic Sr and Ba Signatures of Early Condensates” published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Ren developed new wet chemistry techniques that allowed for analyses of the smallest and most refractory components of fine-grained Calcium-Aluminum-Rich Inclusions (as low as ~80 pg of Barium). This technique permitted a more precise quantification of the geochemical features hidden within meteorites, allowing for a more detailed understanding of the sequence of contributions from a multiplicity of stellar end-members that contributed to the early Solar System’s composition.
Congratulations to Ren Marquez, our 2024 winner, for this highly deserved honor and for leading this impressive study! We also thank everyone who submitted nomination packages and the Pellas-Ryder Award Committee for their work to make this award possible.
Based on the report submitted by: Sam Birch, 2024 Pellas-Ryder Award Committee Chair