The nominations for the Distinguished Career Award, will be solicited from current division members and be based, specifically, on sustained excellence in research, mentoring, service, and leadership for the geobiology and geomicrobiology community throughout the nominee’s career. From these nominations, the Division management board and appointed Division committee of awards will come to a consensus on the awardees. The awards will consist of both a plaque as well as an honorary membership to the division should the awardee not be a current member. The final award recipient names will be sent to GSA for ratification at the GSA Spring Council meeting.
2025 Distinguished Career Awardee: Pieter Visscher
Pieter Visscher is a Professor of Marine Sciences, Earth Sciences, and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Connecticut. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Miami, after which he worked with Ron Oremland at the U.S.G.S. in Menlo Park. Pieter’s work focuses on the biogeochemistry of sedimentary systems and concentrates on element cycling in and biosignatures produced by microbial mats and microbialites. Combining field measurements and laboratory experiments, Pieter researches both extinct and extant microbial sediments. Hans van Gemerden’s microbial ecophysiology team, of which he was part, was the first to deploy microelectrodes in the field to map diel cycles. Through his early studies on the production of biogenic gases, he was involved in the creation of the roadmap that led to the formation of NASA’s Astrobiology Institute. During the last decades, Pieter and colleagues worked on the processes that impact the precipitation of carbonates and the fabric of microbialites through biotic and abiotic processes. Pieter is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, has appointments as Distinguished Visiting Professor at China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, Visiting Professor at Curtin University, Perth, Australia, Professeur de classe exceptionnelle, UBFC, Dijon, France and was visiting professor at Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain, Ensegid, Pessac, France, the University of Puerto Rico and CONICET, Tucuman, Argentina, several of which he visited during his three Fulbright Scholarships. He led UConn’s Geology faculty for nine years before the Department of Geosciences (now Earth Sciences under Tracy Frank) was reestablished. As an ISITE-international coach, he worked for five years with faculty, post-docs, and graduate students at the University de Bourgogne Franche-Comte in France, while teaching his favorite courses in geomicrobiology and astrobiology at UConn.
Previous Awardees:
2024: Alan Jay Kaufman
2023: Gabriela Mángano
2022: John Valley
2021: Frank Corsetti
2020: William M. Berelson and Kurt Konhauser
2019: Russell Shapiro
2018: Andrew Knoll
2017: Marilyn Fogel
2016: Dawn Sumner
2015: Elizabeth and Rudy Raff
2014: Shuhai Xiao
2013: Stan Awramik
2012: Jack Farmer
2011: Derek Briggs