Alexandra Grace Lang, undergraduate geology student, is a recipient of the Joshua Laerm Academic Support Award

Joshua Laerm Academic Support Award: The Georgia Museum of Natural History annually awards the Laerm Award to support UGA undergraduate and graduate studies in natural history.

Alexandra Grace Lang, an undergraduate in the geology department, has received the Joshua Laerm Academic Support Award for Undergraduate Students for her ongoing research on the recent fieldwork at Mt Etna, the largest volcano in Europe and one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Grace conducted fieldwork at Mt Etna (Sicily, Italy) and undertook laboratory analyses of the collected rocks at the Volcano Observatory of the National Institution of Geophysics and Volcanology of Italy (INGV) in Catania. She analyzed the shape and size of the volcanic rocks from eruptions of 2001, 2003, 2022, 2023, and 2024, as well as the famous 122 BC Plinian event at Mt Etna. During her training and research, Grace’s work effort has strengthened the collaboration with INGV scientists while she was supported by European funds through the Ministry of University and Research of Italy and by the National Science Foundation grant in Geology at UGA. Like a cherry over the cake, Grace witnessed and collected the lapilli and ash from her first ever explosive eruption that occurred on July 4th, 2024, celebrated with special "volcanic fireworks" of her work as an emerging and independent early career scientist. Grace is currently producing a set of geochemical and physical data using laboratory facilities at the Centre for Applied Isotope Studies (CAIS) at UGA, at the Georgia Electron Microscopy (GEM) Centre at UGA, and at the Geochemical Laboratory of the University of Florida. The diverse set of data helps assess the level of gas accumulation in magmas fueling explosive volcanic eruptions at Mt Etna and evaluate the correlation between rock porosity and geochemical composition. The Laerm Award will support Grace's scientific presentation at the IAVCEI (International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior) conference in Geneva (Switzerland) gathering all volcanologists from all over the world in June 2025.

Kudos to Grace!