Postdoc Chenguang Sun wins mineralogical society award

Rice University postdoctoral researcher Chenguang Sun has been selected to receive the Mineralogical Society of America’s top honor for early-career scientists.

Sun, who joined Rice’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences in 2016, will receive the 2021 MSA Award at the society’s annual meeting in October in Portland, Oregon.

Chenguang Sun (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

The MSA Award, which has been presented to a single recipient every year since 1951,  recognizes outstanding, early-career published contributions to the science of mineralogy. The honor also includes an invitation to deliver the MSA Award Lecture at the MSA meeting, held in conjunction with the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting.

Sun will be recognized for his work on the interpretation of trace elements in minerals and rocks and interactions between carbonatite and peridotite and genesis of kimberlitic magmas.

Sun received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2014 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 2014 to 2016. He will join the University of Texas at Austin this month as a tenure-track assistant professor.