The Spackman Award: TSOP Student Research Grants

William Spackman portrait TSOP has awarded research grants to graduate students since 1999. In 2005, the grant was named the William Spackman Student Research Award. William Spackman, throughout his career at The Pennsylvania State University, played a leading role in educating many people who are now active in the organic petrology field. Many in TSOP were either Bill's student or had Bill serve on their graduate committee. Graduates at schools such as Southern Illinois, Kentucky, South Carolina, and others, represent the second generation of Bill's influence. His long dedication to coal education has made it appropriate to name this award after him. Bill was highly influential throughout the history of the North American Coal Petrographers, and was the first President-Elect and second President of TSOP. He was made an Honorary Member in 1994.

Recipients of the Spackman Award

2012
Rita Susilawati
 University of Queensland
Controls on microbial methane generation in selected low-rank Indonesian coals.

2011
Hayley Manners
 University of Plymouth
High-resolution compound-specific carbon isotope study of the PETM in northern Spain.

2011
Mohammad Wahid Rahman
 Southern Illinois University
Geochemistry and petrology of thermally altered coals.

2010
Kristen Miller
 University of Maryland
Metazoans of the Mesoproterozoic? A paleoenvironmental and paleobiological evaluation of biomarkers from the Vazante Group, Brazil.

2010
Chris Mays
 Monash University
South Polar environments: new data and insights from the Tapuangi Formation, Chatham Islands, SW Pacific.

2009
Dawn Hayes
 Utah State University
Sequence stratigraphic microfossil and geochemical analysis of the Neoproterozoic Red Pine Shale, Uinta Mountain Group: evidence of biotic change driven by eutrophication?

2009
Asep Permana
 University of New South Wales
Influence of igneous intrusions on coal seam characteristics in the South Walker Creek area, Bowen Basin, Queensland.
and
Margaret McPherson
 University of Kentucky / Southern Illinois University
Geochemistry and petrography of thermally metamorphosed Antarctic coal: implications for 13C-depleted methane release.

2008
Kaydy Pinetown
 University of New South Wales
Factors Affecting Gas in Coal Systems with Special Reference to the Hunter Coalfield.

2007
Lois Yoksulian
 University of Kentucky
Petrography and Geochemistry of Contact Metamorphosed Coals: Implications for the Release of 12C-enriched Methane.

2006
Rachael Von Mann
 University of Kentucky
Influence of primary productivity on organic matter preservation in the middle Ordovician Decorah Formation and the Late Ordovician Maquoketa Group of eastern Iowa.

2006
Tenille Mares
 University of Canterbury
Geological and geochemical controls on fracture and pore systems in relation to gas flow regimes in the Huntly Basin.

2005
Sarah Hawkins
 University of Kentucky
The role of terrestrial organic matter in the Late Devonian-Early Mississippian Appalachian marine basin: Implications for the expansion of land plants, paleo-atmospheric oxygen levels and organic-rich black shale accumulation.

2004
Mark Harvey
 Indiana University
Aciniform Soot in K/T Boundary Sediments.

2003
Daniel Ross
 The University of British Columbia
Gas Potential of Canadian Black Shales and the Role of Organic Matter.

2002
Bethany Burnett
 The University of New Mexico
Formation Mechanisms of Hydrocarbons in Volcanic Gases.

2001
Sharleen Ramos
 The University of British Columbia
Gas Shale Resources - Role of Organic Matter.

2000
Michelle Hawke
 The University of British Columbia
Anthropogenic trace metals in peats in the environs of industrial point sources - a combined geochemical and petrographic approach.

2000
Rachel Walker
Indiana University
Elemental composition of coal macerals:
distribution of nitrogen as determined from an electron microprobe.

1999
Nadir Taskin Akpulat
 University of Calgary
Hydrocarbon generation kinetics of the Lower Cretaceous Ostracode Zone and quantitative basin modeling, Alberta Basin, Canada.