UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Katherine Freeman, Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences in Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, was honored with the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America on Oct. 10 at the society’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon.

The medal, one of the GSA’s highest honors, recognizes “outstanding distinction in contributing to geologic knowledge through the application of physics and chemistry to the solution of geologic problems.”

Freeman received the medal in recognition of "her international leadership and ground-breaking work enabling carbon and hydrogen isotopic analysis of individual organic molecules extracted from geological and environmental materials.” Her studies moved these methods into the mainstream of geochemistry and fostered their use to solve important geologic problems, especially in the study of past climates.

“I am honored to receive the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America,” Freeman said. “I am grateful to my students, postdocs and collaborators who made the work possible — and fun!”

Freeman and her research group study fossil molecules and their stable isotopes. Her team develops new methods in organic isotope analyses, which they use to study past climates, ancient land and ocean biogeochemical processes related to the carbon cycle, microbial geobiology and novel approaches to determining signatures of life on Earth and beyond.

Freeman has won numerous awards for her teaching and research contributions including the Nemmers Prize in Earth Sciences from Northwestern University, the Alfred Treibs Award from the Geochemical Society, the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Science, and the Heinz Lowenstam Science Innovation Award from the European Association of Geochemistry. While on sabbatical from 2019 to 2020 at the California Institute of Technology, she was named the Moore Distinguished Scholar in Geobiology.

Freeman is co-editor of the journal Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the Astrobiology Center for Isotopologue Research, a NASA-funded research center.

Freeman is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Geochemical Society, American Academy of Microbiology and the American Geophysical Union. She also is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Freeman earned her bachelor of arts degree from Wellesley College, and her master of science and doctorate, both in geosciences, from Indiana University. She was a postdoctoral associate at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography before joining the Penn State faculty in 1991.

Arthur L. Day, founding director of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, gave a donation to establish the award in 1948.