The University of Queensland’s Associate Professor Teresa Ubide has been awarded the 2025 Wager Medal for her outstanding contribution to volcanology.
The prestigious award was presented by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) and honours lauded Earth scientist Professor Lawrence Rickard Wager.
Dr Ubide was awarded for her pioneering work in volcano science by advancing understanding of crystal-scale magmatic processes with novel microanalytical techniques.
“I am very honoured, happy, excited and grateful,” Dr Ubide said.
“The medal comes from the international association of volcanologists and it’s very special and humbling to be recognised by this community, which is super passionate, supportive and collaborative.
“It’s also very special to feel such support from the generous colleagues from around the world who nominated me for the award!
“I’m grateful to my amazing UQ magma team, including my students, postdocs and colleagues, as well as collaborators across diverse backgrounds and communities worldwide, who make the research really interesting and fun.
“And I’m also deeply grateful to my family for their endless support and encouragement – thank you all.”
Dr Ubide has been active in developing high-resolution geochemical techniques to interrogate magmatic crystals and their carrier melts.
This provides a better understanding of magma transport through, and storage in, the Earth’s upper mantle and crust.
Her work includes using laser ablation – with lasers similar to those used in eye surgery – analysing volcanic crystals, almost creating a ‘crystal ball’ for eruptive activity.
Her research constrains magmatic processes in space and time, with a particular focus on the drivers of volcanic eruptions and the processes that accumulate critical metals for the green energy transition.
Dr Ubide and her team is currently in Sumbawa in Indonesia undertaking fieldwork for her ARC Future Fellowship project on exploring volcanic arcs as factories for critical minerals.
“We’re collecting samples from active and recent volcanoes and magmatic systems to investigate what makes a magma erupt explosively versus accumulate copper, which is a critical metal for renewable technologies and our sustainable future,” Dr Ubide.
“To meet the rapidly increasing demand for copper in the green energy transformation, we need to better understand how it accumulates on Earth, and most of it accumulates in magma systems such as those across the Pacific Ring of Fire.”
More information about the award can be found on the IAVCEI website.
