The Willy Aspinall Award

The Willy Aspinall Prize may be made annually to the lead author of an outstanding paper on applied volcanology or geoheritage published in English, who is within three years of their being awarded a PhD at a university in the UK. The Prize is named in honour of Prof. Willy Aspinall who is a distinguished professor at the University of Bristol and a hazard and risk science consultant.

The award will take the form of a cash prize (£400), a certificate, and a contribution towards attendance at an annual meeting of the Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group (VMSG), where the winner will be invited to present their paper.

Nominations (via the Nomination Form) should be sent to the VMSG Awards Officer (emma.nicholson@ucl.ac.uk) by the 6th June 2023. Applications will be scored against the following guidelines.

Nominations can be made by any scientist (including a co-author), but not the nominee, and must be supported by a second scientist familiar with the nominee’s work. The second supporting scientist should not be a co-author on the publication itself. Nominations will be considered by the VMSG committee, and the award will be bestowed at the annual VMSG meeting in January. We particularly encourage nominations for historically under-represented groups.

The VMSG committee will consider the nominations, and may seek independent assessment if there is no expertise in the subject matter of the paper. Preference will be given to papers which reflect Professor Aspinall’s main interests in volcano geophysics, monitoring of volcanoes, early warning, volcanic hazards and risk assessment. The VMSG committee will make a decision and inform the winner. In any particular year, the committee may decide not to make an award. The nominated paper must have been published within three years of the award of the nominee’s PhD.

The committee will take into consideration the following points:
• Novelty
• Quality
• Practical applicability in volcanology

Past winners:
2024: Edna Dualeh
2023: Matthew Head
2021: Ailsa Naismith
2019: Jon Stone
2018: Will Hutchison