The First Woman to Win the 183-Year-Old Wollaston Medal

The Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London has been presented over the past 183 years to individuals such as Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz. Until now, no woman has won the award.

But this June, Maureen Raymo, a researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York, will become the first woman to receive the Wollaston Medal. Dr. Raymo is being honored for her vast body of work on climate change, sea levels, and the world’s ice ages.

Dr. Raymo is a native of Easton, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Brown University and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Before joining the research team at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, she was a research professor at Boston University.