Zhicheng Jing and Daniel King have been awarded the 2011 Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award, given annually to one or more promising young scientists for outstanding contributions achieved during their Ph.D. research. Recipients of this award are engaged in experimental and/or theoretical studies of Earth and planetary materials with the purpose of unraveling the physics and chemistry that govern their origin and physical properties. Jing’s thesis is entitled “Equation of state of silicate liquids.” King’s thesis is entitled “Stress-driven melt segregation and reactive melt infiltration in partially molten rocks deformed in torsion with applications to melt extraction from Earth’s mantle.” They both were formally presented with the award at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting, held 5–9 December in San Francisco, Calif.

Jing received his B.S. in geophysics from Peking University, Beijing, China, in 2000. He completed his Ph.D. in geophysics under the supervision of Shun-ichiro Karato at Yale University, New Haven, Conn., in 2010. He is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. His research interests focus on the equation of state of silicate and metallic liquids using both theoretical and experimental approaches and its application to geological problems.

King received his B.S. in geology from Brown University, Providence, R. I., in 2003 and a M.Sc. in structural geology from the University of Vermont, Burlington, in 2006 under the supervision of Keith Klepeis. He completed his Ph.D. in rock and mineral physics under the supervision of David Kohlstedt at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His research interests include the mechanical behavior of the crust and mantle, rock physics, and earthquake mechanics.