2015 Barringer Medal for Natalia Artemieva

It is a great honor for me to deliver the citation for Dr. Natalia Artemieva, a distinguished impact researcher, physicist, and numerical modeler—with the particular ability to liaise with colleagues of different scientific disciplines. Integrated observational, experimental, and modeling approaches are crucial for the understanding of impact processes on Earth and planetary surfaces, and Natasha—as she prefers to be called—has, from the beginning of her career, been one of the very few scientists who significantly contributed to bridging the gap between field observations and modeling approaches. In a way, Natasha's career was already predetermined when she was a child and dreamt to become a cosmonaut. She left her hometown in the Ural Mountains to study physics and mathematics, and graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1982. Thereafter, she joined the famous Schmidt Institute for Physics of Earth of the USSR Academy of Science in Moscow, part of which, the department of explosion physics, became the Institute for Dynamics of Geospheres in the 1990s, to study the radiation of hot gases. As the only female in a male-dominated scientific environment, it would not have been easy for her to be accepted by her colleagues as a credible scientist. Her academic career was then interrupted when she took time out to look after her three daughters. With the SOVA tool in hand she finished her doctoral research project on “Numerical modeling of the 3-D gasdynamic flows resulting from asteroidal impacts” and defended her PhD thesis in 1996. I think it is an expression of her modesty when she refers to her supervisors, Ivan Nemtchinov and Valery Shuvalov, and states that she owes them a great deal of her successful scientific career. Her first publications all dealt with the hypervelocity atmospheric traverse of cosmic objects (e.g., Shoemaker-Levy 9), addressing important questions about the breakup and deceleration of meteoroids. Later, she applied this knowledge to terrestrial case studies such as the Tunguska and the recent Chelyabinsk events. Natasha entered the international stage of the impact cratering community at the European Science Foundation (ESF) Impact Workshop at Bremerhaven in Germany, in 1999, and the following ESF impact workshops. I was a PhD student at the time and was highly impressed by Natasha's work, and did not realize that I had just met someone who would become a great colleague and friend. It is also to the credit of Boris Ivanov, a former Barringer Medal awardee, that Natasha connected with several of her later collaborators, thus paving the way for outstanding achievements to come. Among the endless list of collaborators, many of whom become also close friends, Betty Pierazzo must be elevated above all others. Shortly after they first met, a fruitful collaboration and close friendship began, and if Betty had not passed away a few years ago, way too early and under tragic circumstances, she would have been the ideal person to deliver this citation. Natasha's ability to link different disciplines and her nature that makes it very easy to interact with her, even if you are not a physicist or computer scientist, have gotten her involved in numerous projects and she has been in great demand as a collaborator at several research institutions through extended stays at the University of Kiel, Germany; the University of Toronto, Canada; the Institute de Physique du Globe in Paris, France; the Institute of Interplanetary space in Rome, Italy; the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Germany (MfN); and Imperial College London, UK (IC). However, her hailing port, besides the Institute for Dynamics of Geospheres in Moscow, has been for many years the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), in Tucson, Arizona, where she was appointed as senior staff scientist in 2006, honoring her scientific status and strong collaborative abilities. During the last decade Natasha has spent the winter months in Tucson working on several NASA-funded projects and in summer, she has been busy with Chicxulub-related projects at IC in London and various other projects at MfN in Berlin. It is beyond the scope of this citation to summarize all of Natasha's outstanding scientific contributions made in the course of her career. Although she has also worked on the cratering processes related to hypervelocity impacts on Earth (e.g., Bosumtwi, Ries, Chicxulub) and planetary surfaces (e.g., Mars, Titan, Moon), Natasha's special expertise is focused on atmospheric effects including the traverse of a cosmic object through the atmosphere, the breakup process and how fragments are dispersed, the generation and expansion of the ejecta/vapor plume, and how molten and lithic fragments and dust ejected from the target mix with the hot gas and an atmosphere. Her investigations on the interaction of solid/molten ejecta with vapor/atmosphere in the framework of multiphase hydrodynamics have to be considered pioneer studies that were only possible through the development of special modeling techniques—which is why she was given the nickname “The Witch/Cook of the Ejecta Plume.” Note, Natasha is also a very gifted cook in her private life and I had the pleasure enjoying her excellent food on many occasions. In all of her modeling work, Natasha has used detailed observations often provided by her collaborators as constraints for her models. Her overall approach has been using models to test hypotheses that were proposed by others or herself, and a good many of assumptions have fallen victim to her careful and thorough quantitative and physically consistent testing—while others have been established through her contributions. Much of her work has been dedicated to the modeling of the K-Pg boundary as a consequence of the Chicxulub impact, and to the formation of suevite, an impactite whose origin remains enigmatic. The latter exploits engaged her interest in volcanic eruption processes, in particular phreatomagmatic processes, as she noticed, among other things, similarities between volcanic and impact-induced ejecta plumes, and that processes akin to fuel coolant interaction may be involved in the formation of suevites. The interest in volcanoes finally led to Natasha's participation in a geological expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula, a fascinating adventure for a life-time—as she would call it—but also an inspiring experience to better link field observations with physicochemical processes. Natasha's scientific productivity has always been guided by coupling ground-truth data with the thorough and careful analysis of explanation theories, and rigorous quantitative testing by numerical modeling. Her publication output comprises more than 60 refereed articles published since 1996 on impact cratering, and numerous conference contributions. As a natural consequence of Natasha's outstanding scientific achievements, she has been awarded the prestigious Peregrinus Prize by the German Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science in 2012. Natasha's publication output, the quality of her papers, and her status in the scientific community were eventually honored by electing her onto the editorial board of Meteoritics & Planetary Science journal in 2009. She has since applied the same scientific standard and thoroughness to the manuscripts that go through her editorial review that she would demand of her own work. Thus, she has significantly contributed to raise the quality of numerous papers published in M&PS. And although it can be painful—fortunately, this citation did not go through Natasha's editorial handling—many authors have been grateful for Natasha's comments that are always constructive, as well as scientifically sound and valid. I could carry on listing all the outstanding scientific achievements of Natasha Artemieva, but the list would remain incomplete. Above all, I do want to emphasize that Natasha is one of the best colleagues and friends I have ever had in this business, and I owe Natasha a special thanks for her friendship. Her advice and support was vital in many projects we carried out together. I would like to conclude with emphasizing that, for me, it has only been a matter of time that Natasha would be awarded the Barringer Medal as the first woman ever and maybe also as the first researcher for her achievements purely in modeling. It is without doubt that Natasha contributed significantly to our current understanding of impact cratering physics. Her achievements will have a sustainable “impact” in this field of research. Finally, I would like to thank all colleagues who contributed to Natasha's nomination. The enormous support speaks for the high reputation the awardee enjoys among the community. On behalf of all of them I heartily congratulate Natasha on winning the Barringer Medal and Award.

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