Given the sad and sudden news of the passing of Françoise Gasse, please find a reposting of her IPA Lifetime Achievement Award given to her at the 12th IPS in Glasgow, 2012.
Françoise Gasse
Françoise Gasse has been a pioneer on many fronts. Her dissertation on Lake Abh'e near the Ethiopia-Djibouti border is the first continuous dated African Plio-Pleistocene diatom record. She developed a large database of contemporary diatoms and associated environmental information from African lakes, which was probably the earliest lacustrine transfer function to quantify geochemical variation driven by climate. Françoise worked throughout Africa and western Asia to reconstruct Quaternary climate, and a substantive portion of what we know about African paleoclimate is based on or builds on her work. Her research commonly integrated diatom and isotopic data and is characterized both by its sophisticated understanding of the importance of basin hydrogeomorphology in palaeoclimatic interpretation and the rigour of her taxonomic treatment of the diatoms. Françoise supervised the graduate research of several well-known scientists and has mentored multiple other individuals over the years. The impact and quality of her career are exemplary.
Françoise’s paper can be found here.