From the citation given at the Geological Society's President's Day:
"The William Smith Fund is awarded to Dr Brendan McCormick Kilbride of the University of Manchester. Brendan has developed an international reputation in volcanology. After his PhD at Cambridge, he won a prestigious Fellowship at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. He held further postdoctoral positions in Cambridge and has recently begun a tenure-track Presidential Fellowship at Manchester.
Brendan’s research focusses on remote sensing and volcanic gas geochemistry. He has an impressive publication record. In particular, his work linking satellite-based observations of sulfur dioxide gas clouds with ground displacement around volcanoes has attracted significant interest. Much of Brendan’s work has focussed on the remote and poorly monitored volcanoes of Papua New Guinea. Brendan has pioneered satellite-based methods to observe their gas emissions and has led major expeditions to PNG to collect gas samples from volcanic crater rims. He devotes significant time to interactions with local scientists, with the aim of building support networks and introducing to them new monitoring techniques.
Brendan has shown not only extraordinary academic promise, but also an ability to engage people, taking active roles in science festivals and acting as an adviser for a number of volcano documentaries. Brendan McCormick Kilbride, please accept with our compliments the William Smith Fund of the Geological Society of London."