Jillian Fiona Banfield (born

Armidale, Australia Armidale is a city in the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. Armidale had a population of 24,504 as of June 2018. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2018. It is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region. It ...

) is professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

with appointments in the Earth Science, Ecosystem Science and Materials Science and Engineering departments. She leads the Microbial Research initiative within the Innovative Genomics Institute, is affiliated with

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

and has a position at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb n ...

, Australia. Some of her most noted work includes publications on the structure and functioning of microbial communities and the nature, properties and reactivity (especially crystal growth) of nanomaterials.

Early life and education

Banfield was educated at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

where she completed her bachelor's and master's degrees (1978–1985) both examining granite weathering. She attributes her initial interest in

geomicrobiology Geomicrobiology is the scientific field at the intersection of geology and microbiology and is a major subfield of geobiology. It concerns the role of microbes on geological and geochemical processes and effects of minerals and metals to microbia ...

to Dr Tony Eggleton who drew her attention to processes at the earth's surface, mineral weathering and the regolith. Banfield graduated with a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

in Earth and Planetary Sciences from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

for

high-resolution transmission electron microscopy High-resolution transmission electron microscopy is an imaging mode of specialized transmission electron microscopes that allows for direct imaging of the atomic structure of samples. It is a powerful tool to study properties of materials on the ...

(HRTEM) studies of

metamorphic reaction A metamorphic reaction is a chemical reaction that takes place during the geological process of metamorphism wherein one assemblage of minerals is transformed into a second assemblage which is stable under the new temperature/pressure conditions r ...

s supervised by David R. Veblen.

Career and research

Banfield is an earth scientist who studies the structure, functioning and diversity of microbial communities in natural environments and the human microbiome. Her laboratory and collaborators pioneered the reconstruction of genomes from natural ecosystems and community metaproteomic analyses. Through genomics, her group has provided insights into previously unknown and little known bacterial and archaeal lineages, leading to a new rendition of the

Tree of Life The tree of life is a fundamental archetype in many of the world's mythological, religious, and philosophical traditions. It is closely related to the concept of the sacred tree.Giovino, Mariana (2007). ''The Assyrian Sacred Tree: A Histo ...

. She has conducted extensive research on natural and synthetic

nanomaterial * Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale). Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to na ...

s, exploring the impacts of particle size on their structure, properties and reactivity. Her lab described the oriented attachment-based mechanism for growth of nanoparticles and its implications for development of defect microstructures. She has also studied microorganism-mineral interactions, including those that lead to production of nanomaterials. Banfield was a Fulbright Student in Medicine from th
Australian National University
t
Johns Hopkins University
in 1988, and
Mac Arthur Fellow
in 1999. She has been a professor at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin. Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848, UW–Madison ...

from 1990 to 2001 and the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

(1996–1998). Since 2001, she has been a researcher and professor at the

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

where she heads the geomicrobiology program and works as a researcher at the

. Her research as of 2021 spans field sites in Northern California to Australia and covers subjects at the intersection of microbiology and geosciences, including genome-resolved metagenomics, genome editing tool development, astrobiology and microbial carbon capture. In 2023, Banfield became the first woman to win the

Leeuwenhoek Medal The Leeuwenhoek Medal, established in 1877 by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), in honor of the 17th- and 18th-century microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, is granted every ten years to the scientist judged to have made th ...

from the Royal Dutch Society for Microbiology, an award that that has been given roughly every 10 years since 1875 to honor scientists who have made outstanding contributions to science, society and outreach in the field of microbiology.

Honours and awards

*2023

*2018 Elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematic ...

(FRS). One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: *2017 V.M. Goldschmidt Award,

Geochemical Society The Geochemical Society is a nonprofit scientific organization founded to encourage the application of chemistry to solve problems involving geology and cosmology. The society promotes understanding of geochemistry through the annual Goldschmidt C ...

*2015 Elected to the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal So ...

(International Member) *2015 Honor doctorate, Ben Gurion University, Israel *2013 Award of Dr. sch. h.c. ETH Zurich, Switzerland *2011 L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science: North American Laureate *2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth and Environmental Science of the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memor ...

*2010

Dana Medal The Dana Medal, established in 1998, is awarded by the Mineralogical Society of America and is named in honor of the contributions made by James Dwight Dana (1813–1895) and Edward Salisbury Dana (1849–1935) to the science of mineralogy. It re ...

of the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

*2007 Elected Fellow,

The Geochemical Society The Geochemical Society is a nonprofit scientific organization founded to encourage the application of chemistry to solve problems involving geology and cosmology. The society promotes understanding of geochemistry through the annual Goldschmidt Co ...

*2007 ASM Division Q Lecturer (Environmental and General Applied Microbiology) *2006 Elected Fellow,

American Academy of Microbiology The American Society for Microbiology (ASM), originally the Society of American Bacteriologists, is a professional organization for scientists who study viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, and protozoa as well as other aspects of microbiology. It wa ...

*2006 Elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

*2005 Pioneer Lecturer,

Clay Minerals Society The Clay Minerals Society is an international non-profit organization devoted to the study of clays and clay minerals. History The Clay Minerals Society began as the Clay Minerals Committee of the National Academy of Sciences—National Resear ...

, June 2005 *2005 Rosenqvist Lecturer, Norway, May 2005 *2000 Inaugural NSF Earth Science Week Lecturer *2000 Gast Lecturer,

*2000

John Simon Guggenheim Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have bee ...

Fellowship *2000 Marion L. and Christie M. Jackson Award of the Clay Minerals Society *1999 Fellow through 2004

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and ...

*1999 Faculty Achievement Award, UW-Madison *1999 D.A. Brown Medal,

*1998 H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship UW Madison *1997

Award *1988 Fulbright Scholar in Medicine at Johns Hopkins University

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banfield, Jillian F. Living people Australian expatriates in the United States Australian women geologists Australian microbiologists Geomicrobiologists UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Australian National University alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty MacArthur Fellows Women microbiologists Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates 21st-century American women scientists Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science Evolutionary biologists Women evolutionary biologists Fellows of the Royal Society 1959 births Female Fellows of the Royal Society Recipients of the V. M. Goldschmidt Award