Richard Macphail awarded the IUSS Kubiëna Medal for Soil Micromorphology 2021

Richard Macphail, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute, who has been awarded the Kubiëna Medal for 2021 (with his colleague Paul Goldberg) for outstanding and sustained contribution in the discipline of soil micromorphology, is known for his long-standing experience in this area, and is at the forefront of current research in caves, urban archaeology, experiments, ancient agriculture, buried soils and floors.  

He has led intensive training in archaeological soil micromorphology at the Institute for a number of years. 

In addition to significant outputs in prestigious academic journals, Richard is also the author (with Paul Goldberg) of the books Applied Soils and Micromorphology in Archaeology (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Practical and Theoretical Geoarchaeology (Blackwell Publishing, 2006; 2nd edition Wiley, 2022) both essential volumes for all archaeological inquiry about soil.

Richard was previously recipient of the Geological Society of America’s Rip Rapp Award for Archaeological Geology (2009) and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America. 

The International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) was founded as the International Society of Soil Science (ISSS) on 19 May 1924. The IUSS has been a scientific union member of ICSU (International Council for Science) since 1993. The Kubiëna Medal is currently awarded every four years and presented at the World Congress of Soil Science of the IUSS, and is scheduled to be received by the awardees at the IUSS meeting in Glasgow in August 2022. 

Congratulations Richard!

Further information about this award including details of previous awardees are available on the IUSS website.