Acceptance of the Mineralogical Society of America Award for 2019

Thank you Michael for those really kind words. Mister President, Members of the MSA Award committee, Members of the Society, Colleagues: Thank you very much. I am deeply honored to receive the MSA 2019 award and to become a life member of the MSA.

This award is an incredible proof of international confidence in the work that I have done with my colleagues and students. I thank Michael, my citationist, and my other nominees for their extremely nice support letters. These letters show that my work was appreciated in all labs I worked. I have to admit with modesty that I am also very proud to see my name on the incredible list of past recipients of the MSA award.

I’ve always been interested in Geology but at the university I discovered that I was fascinated by volcanoes. During my master program, Jacqueline Vander Auwera offered to me the opportunity to do a Ph.D. in Liege. During my Ph.D. thesis, I was very lucky for several reasons. The first is that I had the chance to work on amazing rocks from one of the largest igneous bodies on Earth, the Sept Iles layered intrusion. The second reason is that I worked with extremely inspiring people who significantly contributed to my scientific education. Let me first thank Jacqueline Vander Auwera. Jacqueline gave me what I consider as the most important in science: the freedom to develop my own research and my own ideas. She always offered me the opportunity to decide where I wanted my project to go. During the last 15 years, she has always been very supportive of my work and always provided extremely useful advice for the development of my career. Michael Higgins helped me throughout my entire Ph.D. We worked together in the field, in the lab, he helped me with my papers and with him I also got the chance to discover amazing rocks in various places of Quebec. Michael Toplis also significantly contributed to my Ph.D. He always challenged me to do a more rigorous, more quantitative science.

At the end of my Ph.D., I was very lucky to obtain a short postdoc in Cambridge. There I met someone else who became very important for my scientific development, Marian Holness. With Marian I discovered a different way of working. Together we combined geochemistry with a detailed textural analysis of rocks to go much deeper into our understanding of rock formation processes. With Marian I also did amazing fieldwork in Greenland and South Africa. The trip in Greenland is still the best fieldwork I ever did and I want to thank Marian again for that opportunity. In Cambridge, I also met Michael Carpenter. He has always been very supportive of my work and thanks to him I applied to a Junior Research Fellowship from Magdalene College, which I was lucky enough to be granted. I also thank colleagues and friends from Cambridge and Oxford; David Neave, Oli Shorttle, Benoit Dubacq, Madeleine Humphreys, and John Maclennan who all contributed to my work.

In 2013, I moved to Hanover, Germany, to learn new tools. There, I was under the supervision of Francois Holtz, an experimental petrologist. Francois also helped me to develop my own research group. My time in Hannover was a very important step in my career and I want to thank Francois for that and also for having submitted my nomination for the MSA award. In Hannover and during short trips back to Belgium, I met and worked with other brilliant researchers, Francesco Vetere, Renat Almeev, and Camille Cartier.

I am now an assistant professor at the KU Leuven where I developed a lab of experimental petrology. I thank some of my colleagues for their trust and support (Philippe Muchez, Rudy Swennen) and the students who decided to work with me (Thomas van Gerve, Sander Molendijk, Eason Zhang).

I have not yet mentioned the most important individual for my career development: Bernard Charlier. With Bernard, we continuously worked on projects on lavas, layered intrusions, and planets for more than 15 years. Bernard always helped me in my research, in writing papers, and in obtaining funding. He is not only my closest colleague but also a friend. I am sure that we will keep working together for another 20 years with our next projects being focused on experimental petrology, volcanoes, and the ESA BepiColombo mission to Mercury.

Finally, I thank my parents and my family for their support throughout my childhood, my studies, and my career. My last words will go to my wife Julie and my daughter Elise, thank you for your love and support.