Dr. Andrew Jacobson Wins Packard Fellowship & Clarke Medal

Andrew Jacobson

The department is proud to announce that Dr. Andrew Jacobson, assistant professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has recently received two major awards--the 2008 F.W. Clarke Medal and a Packard Fellowship.

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation will provide Dr Jacobson and only 19 other scientists from universities across the country with a five-year unrestricted research grant of $825,000. Among other activities, Jacobson will use his funding to develop new tools for assessing the process of global warming. Jacobson is one of three EPS junior faculty members to receive major grant support in recent months. In the spring of 2007, Suzan van der Lee was awarded an NSF CAREER grant while Steven Jacobsen was also selected as a CAREER grant recipient in January of 2008.

Every year, the Packard Foundation invites presidents of 50 selected universities to nominate two young professors performing innovative research in the natural sciences or engineering. The Packard Fellowship is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious awards given to junior faculty members.

In his research, Jacobson uses state-of-the-art analytical techniques to measure the isotope composition of elements. He uses these measurements to investigate biogeochemical processes that cycle elements at the Earth's surface, such as rock weathering reactions that remove carbon from the atmosphere. Jacobson's other interests include the environmental consequences of global warming and the interaction of microorganisms with geologic materials.

With the Packard funding, Jacobson and his research group will use the novel method of calcium isotope geochemistry to better understand Earth's ancient and modern carbon cycle. In particular, he will examine how mountain-building activity has influenced the chemical evolution of Earth's atmosphere and oceans, track the effects of Arctic climate change on permafrost stability and work on new methods for detecting the chemical signature of life in ancient rocks.

The Packard Fellowship is Jacobson's second major award in recent moths. Last spring, he received an $847,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to acquire a multi-collector thermal ionization mass spectrometer (MC-TIMS) that he will use to measure isotopes of calcium and other elements. Jacobson, who joined Northwestern in 2004, is now designing a new "clean" laboratory required for processing samples that he will analyze with the MC-TIMS.

The Packard Fellowship Program, established in 1988, is among the nation's largest nongovernmental programs designed to seek out and reward the pursuit of scientific discovery with "no strings attached" support.

Following news of Jacobson's Packard Fellowship was the recent announcement that he has also been selected as this year's recipient of the F.W. Clarke Medal. Conferred by the Geochemical Society, the Clarke Medal recognizes an early-career scientist for an outstanding contribution to geochemistry. Previous award recipients are some of the most respected scientists in the field, and the award itself is widely considered one of the signature early career distinctions for leading geochemists.