Dr Jessica Irving, Senior Lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences, will give the Harold Jeffreys Lecture at an upcoming meeting of the RAS. She has used new techniques to image the cores of Earth and Mars, revealing previously unknown properties and complexity of structure.
Dr Irving said: “I am delighted and honoured to be chosen by the Royal Astronomical Society to give this year’s Harold Jeffreys Lecture and I look forward to sharing exciting recent discoveries about the deep interiors of Mars and Earth.”
Each year the RAS recognises significant achievement in the fields of astronomy and geophysics through a number of awards, medals and lectureships, encompassing different types of talent from research to education and outreach.
The Harold Jeffreys Lecture is given annually by a leading geophysicist to offer insight into the interior structure, formation, and composition of the Earth or other planets.
This year’s award announcements were made at the Ordinary Meeting of the Society held on Friday 12 January 2024.
Since 2018, Dr Irving has been a key part of NASA’s InSight Science team that is studying the geophysics of Mars, leading efforts to study Mars’ deep interior. Her recent study of core-transiting phases provides the first direct measurements of aggregate properties of the core of another planet and critical new evidence about the composition, and thus formation and evolution, of the Martian core.
Dr Irving’s citation for the Royal Astronomical Society describes this work as ‘a singular technical achievement’,which involves coordinating a large team using a range of techniques.
The citations states: “Dr Irving is a generous contributor to the broader scientific community, through participation in committees of international organisations, convening conference sessions, and as an associate editor for The Seismic Record.
“She is an accomplished speaker, having given numerous invited seminars and conference presentations, and she is proficient at communicating to an audience beyond her immediate scientific peers. She has been involved in spoken-word media, interviews in the media, and public-facing commentaries and articles. For these reasons, Dr Jessica Irving has been awarded the Harold Jeffreys Lectureship.”
Professor Mike Edmunds, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said: "It is an honour to recognise such remarkable talent in the fields of astronomy and geophysics.
"Exactly 200 years ago we awarded the first Gold Medals to Charles Babbage and Johann Franz Encke.The range of our awards has broadened since then, but the standard of the work they reward has remained extremely high – as a glance at this year’s winners will demonstrate.”
For more information about the RAS awards, click here: Royal Astronomical Society unveils 2024 award winners | The Royal Astronomical Society (ras.ac.uk)