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Suzanne Mahlburg Kay, Cornell’s William and Katherine Snee Professor of Geological Sciences, was recently inducted into the National Academy of Sciences of Argentina.

For her more than three decades of scientific research devoted to understanding the tectonic and magmatic evolution of the South America continental crust and the Andes Mountains, Suzanne Mahlburg Kay, Cornell’s William and Katherine Snee Professor of Geological Sciences, now shares a prestigious honor with Charles Darwin: induction into the National Academy of Sciences of Argentina.

“In these 30 years of work, Dr. Kay has produced significant contributions to the understanding of the magmatic and tectonic evolution of the Andes,” as shown by the high number of citations to her work in the world’s best geological sciences journals, said Victor Ramos, a noted Argentine geologist, who nominated Kay for the honor.

Kay has studied the composition and evolution of the Earth’s continental crust through the processes associated with the Andean subduction margin, which is the oceanic crust moving underneath the western part of the continent. In the process, she has worked with many students from both Cornell and Argentina in projects throughout the Andes. In his nomination, Ramos wrote, “[Kay] has also been a pioneer in the identification of magmatic processes associated with both the horizontality of the subduction zone, and its subsequent steepening as well as with the recycling of the lower part of the thickened continental crust into the mantle.”

At the March 11 induction, Kay presented her talk, “A Geochemical and Dynamic Perspective on Andean Crustal and Mantle Evolution Over the Last 25 Million Years,” in Spanish.

Kay said she was thrilled to receive the same medal, certificate and honor as Charles Darwin did in 1876. The Argentine society keeps Darwin’s thank you letter in a vault: “Dear Sir, I beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of the very handsome diploma of your society and to repeat the thank you for the honor … I have directed my publisher to send a copy of my ‘Origin of Species’ to the society, as I suppose this is the best of my works. … Yours faithfully, Charles Darwin.”

Kay received her bachelor's and master's in geology from the University of Illinois and her doctorate in geological sciences from Brown University. In 2013-14, Kay served as president of the Geological Society of America and in the past year, she has been named an honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires and received the Luis Federico Leloir prize in international scientific cooperation from the Argentine government.