J. Lawrence Smith Medal
J. Lawrence Smith Medal is awarded every three years by the National Academy of Sciences for investigations of meteoric bodies. The medal is in honor of its namesake, the American chemist and meteoriticist, J. Lawrence Smith. Recipients Source: NAS Meenakshi Wadhwa (2021) – For deepening the world’s understanding of the evolutionary history of the solar system through her significant contributions to the sciences of cosmochemistry, solar system chronology, meteoritics, and trace element geochemistry. Kevin D. McKeegan (2018) – For contributions to understanding of the processes and chronology of the early solar system as recorded by primitive meteorites, for innovation in analytical instrumentation, and for showing that the oxygen isotopic compositions of the Earth and rocky planets and meteorites are distinctly different from that of the Sun. Hiroko Nagahara (2015) – For her work on the kinetics of evaporation and condensation processes in the early Solar System and her fundamental contributions to one of the most enduring mysteries in meteoritics, the formation of the chondrules that constitute the characteristic component of the most abundant group of meteorites. Harry Y. McSween, Jr. (2012) – For his studies of the igneous and metamorphic histories of the parent planets of the chondritic and achondritic