The German Mineralogical Society awards the Victor Moritz Goldschmidt Prize to Sandro Jahn in recognition of his fundamental contributions to the atomistic modelling of the structures and properties of minerals, silicate melts, and fluids.

Sandro Jahn has made outstanding contributions not only to the development of molecular dynamics and metadynamics methods, but also to their application as powerful tools for understanding geological and geodynamic processes. His research spans a broad range of topics, from modelling solid phases in the CMAS system under lower mantle conditions, to metadynamics simulations of plastic deformation and high-pressure phase transformations in rock-forming silicates, and molecular dynamics simulations of model silicate melts.

Using electronic structure calculations together with classical molecular dynamics and metadynamics simulations, he was the first to explain the displacive phase transformations between orthoenstatite, clinoenstatite, and protoenstatite as a function of pressure and temperature. Equally noteworthy are his studies of cation speciation in high-pressure fluids. His ab initio simulations have shown how the speciation of lithium ions in fluids changes with pressure and temperature, and how these changes influence lithium isotope fractionation between fluids and minerals in subducting slabs undergoing dehydration reactions.

Through these fundamental contributions, Sandro Jahn has successfully bridged the gap between atomistic simulations and the large-scale, long-term transport of matter within the Earth's interior.