Former DTM Postdoctoral Associate Maria Schönbächler is the recipient of a 2011 European Research Council (ERC) Starting Independent Research Grant. Such grants are awarded to promising researchers who have the potential to become independent research leaders and provide support levels of up to € 2 M over a period as long as 5 years.  Schönbächler is the 4th Broad Branch Road Postdoctoral Fellow to receive this grant.  Two  former winners, Maud Boyet and Ambre Luguet, were also members of DTM's geochemistry group.  James Badro, a former Geophysical Laboratory Postdoctoral Fellow, was also a recipient of this grant.

Schönbächler, an isotope geochemist, held her position at DTM from 2003 to 2005. During that time she worked closely with Research Staff scientists Richard Carlson and Erik Hauri on the isotope systematics of the palladium-silver system in terrestrial rocks and meteorites in order to define the timing of terrestrial core formation and to seek evidence for subsequent core-mantle exchange.  She is currently a Reader in isotope geochemistry at the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester.  Schönbächler’s research focuses on the formation and evolution of the solar system, with particular emphasis on the differentiation and evolution of planetary bodies; dating and tracing events in the early solar system by means of extinct radionuclides; stable isotope fractionation of volatile elements in the early solar system; measurement of nucleosynthetic isotope anomalies to study the formation of the elements and how the different stellar components were mixed in the nebula and the early solar system; and the development of new techniques for isotopic analyses of geologic materials.