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Lenny Winkel receives Science Innovation Award

February 25, 2022 | European Association of Geochemistry, Bärbel Zierl

The European Geochemical Association (EAG) has presented Lenny Winkel, associate professor of Inorganic Environmental Geochemistry at the aquatic research institute Eawag and ETH Zürich, with the 2022 Science Innovation Award and honoured her with the title of Geochemistry Fellow. The award recognizes scientists who have recently made an important and innovative breakthrough in geochemistry.

The EAG writes in its appreciation: “Lenny Winkel has made major contributions to the understanding of selenium occurrence in soils and arsenic occurrence in groundwater by integrating global-scale mapping and data analysis based on chemical modeling and machine learning with geochemical experimentation based on molecular-scale interrogation of biogeochemical processes.

(…) Lenny and her research group demonstrated that atmospheric deposition plays a key role in the terrestrial distribution of selenium. Furthermore, she developed and used innovative methods to measure fluxes of gaseous selenium and discovered that gaseous emissions of selenium are important pathways that could lead to environmental redistribution of selenium. Her further research projects involve multi-scale investigations of trace element behavior in and across various environmental compartments, including marine waters, the atmosphere and soils using experimental, analytical and modeling approaches.

Lenny’s research is internationally recognized, as evidenced by publications in top-ranked scientific disciplinary and interdisciplinary journals as well as invitations for plenary and keynote talks to internationally renowned conferences. (…)”

Cover picture: Prof. Lenny Winkel. (Photo: Dominik Baur)