Medals and minerals: Nancy Ross’ banner year
Nancy Ross has had, in her own words, “quite a year.”
In the last three months, she received the highest honor in her field and had a mineral named for her.
Currently professor of mineralogy at Virginia Tech, Ross is also the former head of the Department of Geosciences and former associate dean of the College of Science. A leader in the study of mineral structure and properties, Ross’ overarching research goal is to better understand why minerals are stable under different conditions of pressure, temperature, and composition.
This year’s highlights
October: A newly discovered mineral was named Nancyrossite in recognition of the Virginia Tech geoscientist’s significant contributions to the study of a family of minerals called perovskites. Fewer than 3,000 people have minerals named for them. This unusual honor is even rarer among women. Of the minerals named after people, 94 percent have been named after men, according to a recent study from the journal American Minerologist.
September: Ross received the prestigious 2024 Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America for her instrumental role in the development of the field of mineral physics. The Roebling Medal is the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America for scientific eminence as represented primarily by scientific publication of outstanding original research in mineralogy. Ross is only the second Virginia Tech scientist to receive this award; the first was her advisor, University Distinguished Professor Gerald Gibbs, professor emeritus of mineralogy.
August: Ross was elected vice president of the International Mineralogical Association. The International Mineralogical Association is the world’s largest organization promoting mineralogy with 36 national societies. Ross is the first woman to hold the position of vice president of the association and is in line to become its first woman president.
April: Ross was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Later this fall, Ross is being honored in symposia in both California and Crete.
Collaboration and contribution
Ross explores which minerals are stable at different pressure and temperature conditions in the Virginia Tech Crystallography Lab. She was instrumental in the establishment of the crystallography lab, a resource for researchers in chemistry, geosciences and biology with support from the College of Science.
The recent honorifics recognized Ross’ contributions in the effort to better understand Earth’s dynamic interior and the effect of structure on physical properties. But her motivation has always been curiosity:
“If I shake a box of atoms and dial it up to a certain temperature and pressure, why do they come together to form a certain structure?” Ross said. “I want to know.”
