A Themed Issue in Honour of Professor Alexandra Navrotsky on the Occasion of Her 80th Birthday

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue of Solids celebrates the accomplishment of Professor Alexandra Navrotsky on the occasion of her 80th birthday, for her long and outstanding career. Alexandra has made major contributions to both mineralogy/geochemistry and to solid state chemistry/materials science in the fields of ceramics, mantle mineralogy and deep earth geophysics, melt and glass science, nanomaterials and porous materials.

Alexandra was educated at the Bronx High School of Science and received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Chicago. After postdoctoral work in Germany and at Penn State University, she joined the faculty of Chemistry at Arizona State University, where she remained until her move to the Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University in 1985. She chaired that department from 1988 to 1991 and was active at the Princeton Materials Institute. In 1997, she became an interdisciplinary Professor of Ceramic, Earth and Environment Materials Chemistry at the University of California at Davis and was appointed Edward Roessler Chair in Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 2001. She served as interim Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, College of Letters and Science, UC Davis from 2013 to 2017. She organized the NEAT (Nano and New Materials in Energy, the Environment, Agriculture, and Technology) research group in 2002 and has directed the Peter A. Rock Thermochemistry Laboratory since her arrival in 1997. In 2019, Alexandra moved back to Arizona State University as a Professor and Regents Professor (since 2022) in the School of Molecular Sciences and the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy at ASU. She is also the Director of the Navrotsky Eyring Center for Materials of the Universe.

Alexandra's research interests have centered on relating microscopic features of structure and bonding to macroscopic thermodynamic behavior in minerals, ceramics, and other complex materials. Since 1997, Alexandra has designed, enhanced and built a unique high-temperature calorimetry facility. She introduced and applied the method for measuring the energetics of numerous materials, which provides insight into chemical bounding, order-disorder reactions, and phase transitions.

Throughout her exceptional career, Alexandra has always collaborated with scientists from all over the world. She has published over 1100 publications and her h factor = 87 testifies her celebrity and her huge contribution in many fields.

As acknowledgment of her outstanding contributions, Alexandra has received tremendous honors including an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship (1973); Mineralogical Society of America Award (1981); American Geophysical Union Fellow (1988); Vice-President, Mineralogical Society of America (1991–1992), President (1992–1993); Geochemical Society Fellow (1997). She spent five years (1986–1991) as Editor, Physics and Chemistry of Minerals, and serves on numerous advisory committees and panels in both government and academy. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. In 1995 she received the Ross Coffin Purdy Award from the American Ceramic Society and was awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from Uppsala University, Sweden. In 2002 she was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth Science. In 2004, she was elected a Fellow of The Mineralogical Society (Great Britain) and awarded the Urey Medal (the highest career honor of the European Association of Geochemistry). In 2005, she received the Spriggs Phase Equilibria Award. In 2006, she received the Harry H. Hess Medal of the American Geophysical Union. In October 2009, she received the Roebling Medal (the highest honor of the Mineralogical Society of America). In 2011, she became a member of the American Philosophical Society. In 2016 she received the Victor M. Goldschmidt Award from the Geochemical Society and the W. David Kingery Award from the American Ceramic Society. The World Academy of Ceramics elected Prof. Navrotsky to Science Professional Member in 2017.

Recently, a newly discovered mineral K₂Na₁₀(UO₂)₃(SO₄)₉•2H₂O was named Navrotskyite in her honor.

On the occasion of her 80th birthday we are delighted to have compiled in this Special Issue of Solids contributions from friends and colleagues from all over the world, covering a wide range of areas.

This compilation is the witness of the gratitude and the great honor to have work with Alexandra, and the inspiration she is for many scientists.

The aim of the special issue is to put together articles from the biomineralization, geochemistry, mineralogy and materials community that show new achievements, and moving steps towards understanding of the structure and stability of nanomaterials along with their dependance of temperature and pressure, the energy of phase transformation, etc.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. We look forward to receiving your contributions in the different fields mentioned above including, but not limited to:

• Phase structure and stability;
• Energy and transformation in complex systems;
• Surfaces and interfaces;
• Experimental Thermodynamics;
• Energetics of nanomaterials.

Prof. Dr. Sophie Guillemet-Fritsch
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Solids is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• energetics
• phase transformation
• complex system
• solids
• surfaces
• interfaces
• experimental thermodynamics