Prof. Kari Cooper has published a sustained series of papers that use U-series isotopes to establish the timescales of magmatic processes during crustal magma storage. These advances embody everything the Bowen Award is designed to honor. Uniquely, she has combined this with other proxies such as crystal diffusion and size distributions to develop p a widely accepted paradigm about magma storage in cold mush zones followed by remobilization and eruption. In addition, the specific U-series work she developed is not undertaken by any other laboratory in the world and has led to remarkable insights into igneous processes. Even before her Ph.D. was completed, Kari was regarded as a leading expert on the timescales of magmatic evolution. In particular, her development of new methods to obtain Ra-Th ages from crystals influenced the entire U-series community. The research is very challenging analytically, and so while many other laboratories undertook limited similar studies, the shear time-consuming nature of the work meant most made only minor contributions. In contrast, Kari has published definitive studies of Mount St. Helens, Kīlauea, South Sister, and Volcan Quizapu among many others. As part of this research, she was one of the first to recognize discordancy between U-Th and Ra-Th ages and to develop models to explain this observation. Kari has cemented an even broader impact by combining these timescale constraints to other proxies that can inform models for volcanic hazard mitigation. This is a major achievement summarized in her highly cited letter in Nature that has had a major impact upon the research community and driven a now widely accepted paradigm about magma storage in cold mush zones followed by remobilization and eruption. In parallel with the U-series research, Kari has placed new constraints on the recycling of crustal materials into the mantle and extended her expertise to problems in climate change landscape evolution. She is highly deserving of this year’s Bowen Award.

—Simon Turner, Macquarie University, Sydney, N. S. W., Australia

I was quite pleasantly surprised and am deeply honored to be named a Bowen awardee this year. This is personally very meaningful, not only because of the association with Bowen, but also because the list of past recipients includes a disproportionate number of my scientific heroes. It is humbling to be placed in their company. I would like to particularly thank those who submitted the nomination: Simon Turner, Adam Kent, Kathy Cashman, and George Bergantz. I fully recognize that the number of people deserving of awards far exceeds the number of awardees, and it is the people who selflessly spend time writing nominations who make the difference between those groups. When I finished my Ph.D. and was looking for permanent positions, I had no idea whether I would be able to build a lab and continue doing U-series work, so I am also grateful to the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis for supporting these very specialized facilities. In addition, almost all of my work to date has been funded by the National Science Foundation, so thank you to reviewers, panelists, and program officers for continuing to believe me when I argued in proposals that studies based on a small number of annoyingly difficult analyses would lead to better understanding of magmatic processes in general. My work has always been highly collaborative, and without students, colleagues, and mentors too numerous to name individually, none of this research would have happened. However, I would like to call out two individuals in particular: Adam Kent, my longtime collaborator, who taught me that the most fun collaborations are the most productive, and Mary Reid, my Ph.D. adviser and career-long mentor and colleague, who always held me to the highest professional standards and set the stage for all of my future successes. Mary also inspired me to direct my competitive instincts toward running, which had the dual effect of maintaining my physical and mental health throughout my career, and of facilitating a more collaborative attitude in my science. I think all of us strive to do work that is relevant and impactful and hope to occasionally make a contribution that changes the way people understand the world. It is enormously humbling and inspiring to hear that my community has valued my contributions to date, and I am looking forward to many more years of chasing greater understanding. —Kari M. Cooper, University of California, Davis