Following the guidance outlined in the Meteoritical Society Constitution, the Nominating Committee is pleased to present the following slate of candidates, who are nominated to start their terms in January 2027:
Vice-President
Sara Russell
I attended my first Meteoritical Society meeting, in Vienna in 1989, as a first-year PhD student. Hearing some of the extraordinary stories that meteorites can tell about the evolution of the early Solar System was a transformative experience. In this community united by fascination for these messengers from space, I felt I had found my tribe.
Sara Russell is at the Natural History Museum in London, and please read the full biography and statement of priorities for the Meteoritical Society here.
Treasurer:
Cari Corrigan (2nd term)
Cari Corrigan is a Research Geologist and Curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, USA. She curates the U.S. Antarctic Meteorite Collection at the Smithsonian. Her scientific interest is in the petrology and geochemistry of chondrites, differentiated materials (including iron meteorites), and impact melted materials from a variety of meteorite types. She served on council from 2016 to 2020. Since 2011 she has represented the society to Elements Magazine, both as the Meteoritical Society Editor (2011-2024) and as Chair of the Executive Committee (2022-2025). She remains the society representative to the Executive Committee. In addition, she has been a member of various other society committees and became a fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 2022.
Secretary:
Rhiannon Mayne (1st term)
Rhiannon Mayne is the Curator of the Oscar Monnig Meteorite Collection at Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth, Texas, USA, where she also holds the Oscar and Juanita Monnig Endowed Chair of Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Her research focuses on the mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry of differentiated meteorites, with spectra thrown in occasionally for good measure. She is currently the Chair of the Publications Committee for the Meteoritical Society and has previously served on both the Membership and Nomination Committees. In addition, she is dedicated to advancing public engagement with planetary science through education, outreach, and science communication.
Councilors:
Vinciane Debaille (1st term)
Vinciane Debaille is a Research Director at the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) and a professor in isotope geochemistry at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels. Her work focuses on the formation and evolution of the solar system, ranging from studying chondrites to unraveling the geodynamic histories of differentiated asteroids and terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars through isotope geochemistry, by analyzing achondrites, Archean samples and martian meteorites. Her scientific interests also extend to the broader field of astrobiology. She has led and participated in multiple meteorite-collecting expeditions in Antarctica, and is the curator of the Belgian Antarctic meteorite collection. She has been selected a one of ESA’s Return Sample Scientists of the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission in 2020. In 2024, she co-organized the 86th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society held in Brussels. She became a fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 2024 and received the Jessberger Award of the Meteoritical Society in 2025.
Wataru Fujiya (1st term)
Wataru Fujiya is an associate professor at Ibaraki University, Japan. He primarily studies isotope cosmochemistry using in-situ analytical techniques like ion microprobe (SIMS). In particular, he focuses on the aqueous alteration of carbonaceous chondrites and presolar grains. He is a member of Hayabusa2 initial sample analysis “chemistry” team, where he performed carbon- and oxygen-isotope measurements and dating of carbonate minerals in Ryugu samples. He is now involved in JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, serving as the PI of Sample Analysis Working Team (SAWT) and as a scientific member of the sampling system (sampler) development team. He is also a member of the Publications Committee of MetSoc for the 2024-2025 term.
Julianne Gross (2nd term)
Juliane Gross is the Artemis Sample Curation Lead within the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center since November 2023. In this role she is responsible to help NASA get ready for revisiting the Moon and returning rocks from its South Polar Region. Her responsibilities include developing the pre-mission curation strategy plan; planning for, and executing sample collection, sample handling, sample transport, and sample storage at all stages of the missions; assisting the Flight Operations Team to mature sample collection concepts of operation; and helping to training the Artemis astronauts. Once the lunar samples are safely returned to Earth at the end of each mission, she will lead and conduct the preliminary examination of these samples to create a sample catalog. Her own research focuses on understanding how planetary bodies like the Moon, Mars, and asteroids have formed and evolved over time and extracting the stories of formation from the rocks and minerals to better understand the planet-altering processes that have shaped our corner of the universe.
Yangting Lin (2nd term)
Yangting Lin is a professor of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS). He graduated from Zhejiang University in 1982 with a Bachelor degree in Geochemistry. He did his PhD research in Max Planck Institute of Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, from 1988 to 1990 via a CAS-MPI joint collaboration, and received his PhD degree in cosmochemistry from the Institute of Geochemistry, CAS, in 1991. He studied meteorites in the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS, from 1991 to 2003. He also did his research as a JSPS fellow in Ibaraki University (1995-1997) and as a visiting scholar in WU and ASU. Yangting Lin served on the Nomenclature Committee (2005-2010) and the Nominating Committee (2005-2006, 2015-2016), and became a fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 2012. His research interests include enstatite chondrites, and CAIs, presolar grains and short-lived nuclides in primitive chondrites. Since 2004, he has more participated in China's lunar and deep space exploration program.
Gordon Osinski (2nd term)
Gordon “Oz” Osinski is a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD from the University of New Brunswick (2004) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of St. Andrews (1999), Scotland, both in Geology. His main research focus is on understanding impact cratering as a planetary geological process. Oz has published over 230 papers and has received numerous awards, including The 2021 Barringer Medal of the Meteoritical Society. Oz is also involved in several planetary exploration-related activities. He is a Co-I on the PanCam instrument on the European ExoMars mission to Mars and he is the PI of the Canadian Lunar Rover Mission – Canada’s first ever rover mission. He is involved in providing geology training to Canadian and US astronauts and was recently selected as part of the Artemis III Geology Team. Oz is also passionate about outreach and science communication.
Myriam Telus (1st term)
Myriam Telus is an associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz (since 2017). Her interdisciplinary research focuses on timescales and conditions of planetesimal formation via isotopic, petrographic and experimental analyses of meteorites. She has 10+ years of experience with microanalytical tools, including SIMS, synchrotron XFM, and electron microscopy, and has recently developed techniques for meteorite outgassing experiments. Recently, she led a mission concept study called CORAL (Centaur Orbiter and Lander) for the Planetary Science Decadal Survey. She is heavily involved with organizing and fundraising for the Bay Area Planetary Science Conference. Telus is the recipient of the 2019 NASA Planetary Science Early Career Award and the 2023 NSF Career Award. Prior to UCSC, Telus received her bachelor’s from the University of Chicago (2008), Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii (2015), and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Carnegie Institute for Science (2015-2017).
Tomohiro Usui (1st term)
Tomohiro Usui is a Professor at ISAS, JAXA, where he leads research in the Department of Solar System Sciences and the Astromaterial Science Research Group. He also holds a professorship in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at the University of Tokyo. He received a Ph.D. in Geochemistry in 2004 from Okayama University, Japan. Thereafter, he worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Tennessee and NASA Johnson Space Center, and as a faculty member at the Tokyo Institute of Technology before joining JAXA in 2018. His research primarily explores the geochemistry of Martian meteorites, focusing on the evolution of water and the paleo-environment on Mars. He has contributed to significant projects such as JAXA's sample return missions, including the Martian Moon eXplorer (MMX) and Hayabusa2.
Zoë Wilbur (1st term)
Zoë Wilbur is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, USA. Her research investigates the abundances and isotopic signatures of volatiles to understand how secondary processes— such as volcanism and fluid-rock interactions— shaped planetary bodies across our solar system. Zoë combines 2D and 3D petrography with geochemical analyses to study the evolution of lunar basalts, enstatite-rich meteorites, and most recently, samples returned from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex mission. Zoë is an active member of the Meteoritical Society and is a past recipient of both the Wiley and McKay awards. She previously served as co-editor of the Meteoritical Society website, geology team lead for the NASA Spacesuit User Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) program, and a member of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) Specific Action Team (SAT) on Volatile Samples and Cold Curation. She currently serves as a documentarian for the South Pole-Aitken Basin Sample Return and eXploration (SPARX) Science Definition Team.
In addition to the slate of candidates nominated here, a nomination for any specific position may subsequently be made that has the demonstrated support of at least 3% of the Society’s members in good standing and with verification that the nominated candidate is qualified and willing to serve in that office. Any such additional nominations by members must be received by the Secretary no later than February 15, 2026. If no candidates are nominated other than those nominated by the Nominating Committee as listed here, the Secretary shall be empowered to declare these candidates elected by affirmation. The Meteoritical Society Constitution and Bylaws provide additional details.
For the 2027–2028 term, current Vice President Maria Schönbächler will serve as President and current President Guy Consolmagno will serve as Past President.
From the report of the Nominating Committee: Sarah Crowther (chair), Pierre Haenecour, Martin Lee, Amanda Ostwald, Minako Righter, Susanne Schwenzer