Chair – Programme Committee Building Bridges 2023 and Vice President of the Academia Europaea
Biography
Born in 1958 in Corner Brook, Nfld., Canada, Don Dingwell received his B.Sc. (1980) in Geology/Geophysics from the Memorial University of Newfoundland and his Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Alberta (1984). Next followed two years as a Carnegie Research Fellow at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and one on the Faculty of the University of Toronto. In 1987 he was recruited to Germany as assistant to the director of a newly-founded research institute in Bayreuth. There he obtained his Venia Legendi in Geochemistry in 1992. In 2000 he was called to the Chair in Mineralogy and Petrology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. There he founded the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of which he is currently Director.
Dingwell's principal research interest is the physico-chemical description of molten rocks and their impact on volcanic systems and ore deposit formation.
He has published ca. 550 papers on geomaterials, magmas and volcanism. His approach is fundamentally experimental and materials-based. His current research spans the structure and dynamics of silicate melts, the mechanistic interpretation of volcano monitoring and magma kinematics and the quantification of the role of volcanism and volcanic ash in the Earth System.
He has received numerous scientific awards, medals and fellowships - including the Bunsen (EGU), Day (GSA), Hess (AGU), Holmes (EGU), Peacock (MAC), Werner (DMG), Steinmann (DGGV), VIP (GAC) and Miller (RSC) Medals and the Goldschmidt (DMG), Bowen (AGU), Schott, and MSA (MSA) awards. He holds honorary degrees from UCL, Alberta, UNAM, and Simon Fraser, is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, Academia Europaea, acatech, the Leopoldina, the Royal Society (London), the Academia Mexicana de Ciencias, the Order of Merit of Germany, as well as being an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has been President of the European Geoscience Union (EGU) and the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth´s Interior (IAVCEI), and was the 3rd and last Secretary-General of the European Research Council. He is currently Vice-President of the Academia Europaea.
Website: https://www.en.mineralogie.geowissenschaften.uni-muenchen.de/personen/chair/dingwell/index.html