Dr. Andrea Mundl-Petermeier is recognized with the 2022 Hisashi Kuno Award for incredibly exacting analytical work that was used to extract evidence, using a radioactive isotope that has been extinct for about 4.5 billion years, on the current chemical structure of Earth’s interior. Her demonstration that variability in tungsten isotopic composition still exists in modern mantle-derived rocks is proof that Earth’s interior has not yet mixed away all the consequences of differentiation events that occurred within tens of millions of years of Earth formation. Besides setting limits on the effectiveness of silicate-Earth mixing driven by convection, her work is leading the way to resolving which aspects of mantle compositional variation relate to Earth’s initial differentiation as opposed to the continuing process of crust-mantle differentiation. Her 2017 paper in Science documented a correlation between 182W/184W and 3He/4He in modern intraplate oceanic basalts. The helium isotopic compositions of such basalts have been used for half a century to suggest the presence of “primordial” material in Earth’s interior, but Dr. Mundl-Petermeier’s results instead tie the high 3He component to a differentiated Earth reservoir characterized by low Hf/W that formed while 182Hf was still extant, for example, prior to 4.5 billion years ago. Her results show clearly that these ancient reservoirs have been preserved to the present day somewhere within Earth’s interior. Besides the exquisitely precise data presented in her papers, equally important have been her thorough and open-minded attempts to interpret these isotopic variations beginning with models for the prolonged mixing into Earth’s mantle of late-arriving extraterrestrial material, to models invoking exchange between mantle and core. If the latter explanation is correct, Dr. Mundl-Petermeier has produced by far the strongest evidence that core and mantle have exchanged at least isotopic signatures through time, and that some intraplate volcanism ultimately derives from near the core-mantle boundary. Both ideas have been discussed for decades, but the conclusive evidence has been missing. Dr. Mundl-Petermeier has contributed the most convincing evidence yet on these important questions regarding the processes that drive the chemical evolution of Earth’s interior. The 11 papers she produced while a postdoc at the University of Maryland represent perhaps the most potentially impactful work ever done in the solid Earth sciences in such a short period by an early-career scientist. —Richard W. Carlson, Earth and Planets Laboratory, Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, D.C.

Thank you, Rick, for those kind words, for your ongoing support, and for nominating me for this award! I feel very honored to have received this incredible recognition and would like to thank all the people involved in my nomination, as well as the AGU Volcanology, Geochemistry, and Petrology section and the Kuno committee for choosing me. There are many early-career scientists just as deserving of this award, so I am very grateful! I am thankful to my Ph.D. adviser, Theo Ntaflos, at the University of Vienna, who introduced me to isotope geochemistry and early on gave me the opportunity to work very independently. He opened the door to international collaborations that resulted in many future opportunities. I owe this award to my postdoc adviser, Rich Walker, who gave me the chance to work on this very exciting topic of tungsten isotopes. Working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maryland from 2015 to 2018 opened the door for me to work with the best scientists in the field, resulted in long-lasting collaborations, and ultimately set me up for future success. Rich provided incredible knowledge and the necessary working environment for me to achieve the best results possible. I am forever grateful for this opportunity and the continuous support! To my best friends in geochemistry, Brad Peters and Jesse Reimink: Thank you for making this journey so much fun, for your friendship and collaborations, and for all the doughnuts! I am thankful to all my past and ongoing collaborators and the many people in this community who have supported me throughout my career! Thank you to my husband, my family, and my friends, who kept me motivated and who always believed in me, and to Leo, who has been by my side every step of the way. —Andrea Mundl-Petermeier, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria