The Oparin/Urey Medal honours important contributions to the field of origins of life. The medal is awarded by ISSOL (the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life). The award was originally named for Alexander Ivanovich Oparin, one of the pioneers in researching the origins of life. In 1993, the Society decided to alternate the name of the award so as to also honour the memory of Harold C. Urey, one of the first to propose the study of cosmochemistry

Cosmochemistry

Cosmochemistry or chemical cosmology is the study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe and the processes that led to those compositions. This is done primarily through the study of the chemical composition of meteorites and other physical samples...

. The current list of medalists is shown below:

Oparin/Urey Medal Winners

Year	Name	Medal
1980	Cyril Ponnamperuma Cyril Ponnamperuma Dr. Cyril Andrew Ponnamperuma was a Sri Lankan scientist in the fields of chemical evolution and the origin of life.-Biography:...	Oparin
1983	Stanley Miller Stanley Miller Stanley Lloyd Miller was an American chemist and biologist who is known for his studies into the origin of life, particularly the Miller–Urey experiment which demonstrated that organic compounds can be created by fairly simple physical processes from inorganic substances...	Oparin
1986	John Oró Joan Oró Joan Oró i Florensa was a biochemist from Catalonia , whose research has been of importance in understanding the origin of life. He participated...	Oparin
1989	J. William Schopf	Oparin
1993	Leslie Orgel Leslie Orgel Leslie Eleazer Orgel FRS was a British chemist.Born in London, England, Orgel received his B.A. in chemistry with first class honours from Oxford University in 1949...	Urey
1996	James Ferris	Oparin
1999	Alan Schwartz Alan Schwartz Alan D. Schwartz is an executive chairman of Guggenheim Partners, LLC, an investment banking firm based in Chicago and New York. He was the last CEO Bear Stearns before its acquisition by JPMorgan Chase & Co., having succeeded James E. Cayne who remained chairman.-History at Bear Stearns:Alan...	Urey
2002	Albert Eschenmoser Albert Eschenmoser Albert Eschenmoser is a Swiss chemist working at the ETH Zurich and The Scripps Research Institute.His work together with Lavoslav Ružička on terpenes and the postulation of squalene cyclization to form lanosterol improved the insight into steroid biosynthesis.In the early 1960s, Eschenmoser began...	Oparin
2005	Gerald Joyce Gerald Joyce Gerald Francis Joyce is a professor and researcher at The Scripps Research Institute, best known for his work on in vitro evolution of catalytic RNA molecules and the origins of life....	Urey
2008	James Kasting James Kasting James Fraser Kasting is an American geoscientist and Distinguished Professor at Penn State University. Kasting was educated at Harvard University and the University of Michigan, where he received his Ph.D...	Oparin
2011	Jack W. Szostak Jack W. Szostak Jack William Szostak is a Canadian American biologist of Polish British descent and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with...	Urey