Early Career/Mineral Physics (vote for 1)
Luisa Chavarria
Luisa Chavarria is a PhD candidate in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Michigan State University in the field of mineral physics. She holds a B.S. in Geology and an M.S. in Earth Sciences, and her research interests include high-pressure mineralogy, geochemistry, and planetary interiors, with an emphasis on understanding chemical processes in Earth’s mantle. Her current work investigates the solubility and incorporation mechanisms of sodium (Na) in two key lower mantle minerals: ferropericlase ((Mg,Fe)O) and davemaoite (CaSiO₃-perovskite). To address these questions, she combines high-pressure experimental techniques like diamond anvil cell laser heating and synchrotron X-ray diffraction with spectroscopic methods to study the chemistry and structure of deep Earth minerals.
Allison Pease, PhD
Allison Pease is a high-pressure experimental mineral physicist and current Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Arizona State University and Visiting Scientist at Carnegie Science’s Earth and Planets Laboratory. Her research uses diamond anvil cells, large-volume presses, synchrotron X-ray diffraction and spectroscopy to study phase stability, melting behavior, deformation, spin transitions, and equations of state in planetary core and mantle materials. She is a frequent user of national synchrotron facilities, including the Advanced Photon Source and Advanced Light Source, with experience as a PI and experimental lead at GSECARS, HPCAT, and ALS beamline 12.2.2. In addition to experimental work, Dr. Pease develops open-source research tools, including EoSAlign, to improve pressure calibration and high-pressure data analysis. Allison enjoys being involved in the scientific community through organizing events, outreach, and developing tools that make research more accessible.
Cijin Zhou
Cijin Zhou is a PhD candidate in Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the structure, elasticity, melting and phase relations of iron and iron alloys under extreme conditions, with applications to Earth’s and planetary cores. She has extensive experience conducting high pressure-temperature experiments using laser-heated diamond anvil cells coupled with synchrotron-based techniques, including X-ray diffraction, synchrotron Mössbauer spectroscopy, and nuclear resonant inelastic X-ray scattering. Cijin has been an active user at synchrotron facilities, including the APS and ALS. During her recent residence at the APS as a visiting student, she led the implementation of a double-sided laser heating system at beamline 3-ID-C to expand nuclear resonant scattering capabilities to simultaneous high-pressure and high-temperature conditions.
Rock Mechanics (vote for 1)
Andrew Cross, PhD
Andrew Cross is an Assistant Scientist II in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His research focuses on the rheological and microstructural evolution of geological and planetary materials, including rocks, minerals, and ices. He uses laboratory deformation experiments, synchrotron-based methods, and electron backscatter diffraction to investigate processes such as strain localization, dynamic recrystallization, phase transformations, and transient weakening in Earth and planetary interiors. Dr. Cross currently chairs the AGU Physical Properties of Earth Materials (PPEM) focus group and serves on the steering committee of the In-Situ Studies of Rock Deformation (ISRD) research coordination network.
Christine McCarthy, PhD
Christine McCarthy is an Associate Research Professor at Columbia’s Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. She received her Masters and Ph.D. from Brown University, after which she conducted a two-year postdoc fellowship in Tokyo at the Earthquake Research Institute. She specializes in running laboratory experiments that measure how ice and other geologic materials respond to external forcing at various timescales, such as how glaciers slide or how seismic waves are damped as they travel through the Earth. She is interested in how features at the microscopic scale affect macroscopic-scale behavior, in particular the role of impurities and partial melt. Recent projects have expanded her research into carbon mineralization and technology testing for outer solar system mission design. She leads a large and vibrant team in the Rock and Ice Mechanics Lab exploring mechanical behavior over a wide range of P-T conditions.
Low-Temperature Geochemistry (vote for up to 2)
Young-Shin Jun, PhD
Young-Shin Jun is the Anna McKelvey Professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at Washington University. She received her master’s and PhD degrees at Harvard University, MA, and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in CA. She advances the understanding of nanoscale interfacial chemistry and solid nucleation to tackle challenges in energy and the environment. Since 2004, her group has made extensive use of synchrotron-based X-ray methods at major U.S. synchrotron user facilities, including APS, ALS, SLAC, and NSLS. Dr. Jun is the Chair of the American Chemical Society’s Committee on Science and an Alternate Councilor of the ACS Environmental Chemistry. She is an Editorial Board Member of ACS ES&T: Engineering, RSC Advances, and Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering and was the 2015 Program Chair and the 2016 Division Chair of the ACS Geochemistry.
Kimberly Lau, PhD
Kimberly Lau is a low-temperature sedimentary geochemist with interests in biogeochemical cycling and Earth system evolution. Her research combines field, analytical, isotopic, experimental, and numerical modeling-based studies of geochemical cycles and environmental proxies in the sedimentary record. Her work has focuses on how the cycling of major elements, such as carbon and phosphorus, and redox-sensitive trace metals, including uranium and rare earth elements, reflects climate, environmental, or geological processes. Dr. Lau is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the Pennsylvania State University. She obtained her B.S. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University in 2009 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2016 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Riverside.
Angelia Seyfferth, PhD
Angelia Seyfferth is a Professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University, where she leads an interdisciplinary research program focused on soil biogeochemistry. Before joining ASU in 2025, she developed a research program on metal and nutrient cycling in the soil-plant-human system at the University of Delaware and served as the founding Director of the Center for Food Systems and Sustainability and the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Her research focuses on developing sustainable ways to lower human exposure to harmful contaminants from food, and she uses both laboratory and field experiments as well as conventional and advanced spectroscopic techniques to illuminate the dynamic chemistry of the rhizosphere and to understand localization of contaminants and nutrients in soils and plants. Dr. Seyfferth has won several awards, including the 2022 Jackson Award in Soil Chemistry and Mineralogy given by the Soil Science Society of America and the 2022 Charles S. Falkenberg Union Award co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and the Earth Science Information Partners, an NSF CAREER award, and a faculty award of excellence in sustainability. She previously served as the Soil Chemistry Division Chair for the Soil Science Society of America.