Washington University physicist Ernst K. Zinner, Ph.D., a pioneer in the analysis of stellar dust grains found in primitive meteorites, is being recognized for his outstanding contributions to science with two prestigious awards.
The National Academy of Sciences presented Zinner with the J. Lawrence Smith Medal on Monday, April 28, in Washington, D.C., during the academy's 134th annual meeting. Zinner, a research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences and a fellow of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, all in Arts and Sciences, received a bronze medal and a $20,000 prize.
Zinner was chosen by the academy for "his pioneering studies of the isotopic composition of circumstellar dust grains preserved in meteorites, opening a new window to the formation of the solar nebula." The award, which is given every three years for investigations of meteoritic bodies, was established through the J. Lawrence Smith Fund by a gift from Sara Julia Smith.
Zinner also will receive the Meteoritical Society's 1997 Leonard Medal during the society's 60th annual meeting on the island of Maui, Hawaii, in July. The medal, which will be presented to Zinner at a July 23 banquet, is awarded annually to a scientist with an outstanding record of accomplishments in original research in the broad field of meteoritics and closely allied fields. The award is named for Frederic C. Leonard, who assembled an extensive meteorite collection that he presented to the University of California at Los Angeles before his death in 1960.
As recipient of the Leonard Medal, Zinner has been asked to deliver a scientific talk at the meeting, which then will be published in Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
Zinner is the second Washington University faculty member to receive both awards. Robert M. Walker, Ph.D., director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences and McDonnell Professor of physics, received the J. Lawrence Smith Medal in 1991 and the Leonard Medal in 1993.
"The selection of Ernst Zinner to receive these awards is a testament to the stature of his research and the remarkable contributions that he and other members of the McDonnell Center are making in space research," said Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts and Sciences.
During the past 10 years -- since "stardust" was recovered from meteorites for the first time -- Zinner and other members of the McDonnell Center have played leading roles in analyzing these grains in the laboratory and interpreting the results. It generally is believed that these grains originated in stellar atmospheres and predate the solar system. By studying the isotopic composition of these grains, researchers are gaining new information on nuclear and chemical processes in stars and on conditions during the formation of the solar system.
Using a microanalytic instrument called an ion microprobe to measure the proportions of specific isotopes, Zinner and his colleagues have identified three types of interstellar grains, and, just recently, two important stellar sources of the grains. Zinner, who is director of the McDonnell Center's Ion Microprobe Laboratory, adapted the microprobe to permit precise isotopic measurements in samples weighing as little as a millionth of a millionth of a gram. Scientists worldwide travel to the center's laboratories to conduct experiments using its unique ion microprobe.
A native of Austria, Zinner earned the Austrian equivalent of a master's degree in physics at Vienna's Technical University in 1960. He came to the United States in 1965, and in 1972 he earned a doctorate in high-energy physics from Washington University and joined the University's Laboratory for Space Physics (now the McDonnell Center).
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