March 10, 2021 - NIOSH Mining's Jennica Bellanca, a mechanical engineer who conducts research on using virtual reality for mine safety and health training, was honored with the 2020 Robert M. Peele Memorial Award. The award was presented during the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME)'s annual MINExchange Conference and Expo March 1-5, 2021, held virtually this year.

The award recognizes the best paper or series of papers in an SME publication within the previous two-year period that has a first author under 35 years old at the time the paper is submitted. The 2019 paper, Developing a Virtual Reality Environment for Mining Research, was the noted paper that landed Ms. Bellanca the honor.

A video screen capture from the awards presentation depicting the award plaque with Jennica Bellanca in an inset photo.