Jackson Group News Archives

Archived Select Lab Group News and Events (2016-2025)

Ben Strozewski defends his Ph.D. thesis: Crystal chemistry and seismic wavespeeds of dense oxyhydroxides: hydrogen transport in Earth’s lower mantle (spring 2025). Congratulations Ben!

Iron-rich (Mg,Fe) continues to receive attention in the news!

Jennifer presents at the 87th Annual Caltech Seminar Day, a Caltech Alumni Event:
Earth’s Evolution Unveiled: Learning from the Core-Mantle Boundary
(Watch the preview)

Jennifer Jackson and Mike Gurnis lead the GPS student enrichment trip to New Zealand! (March 2024)

2023 AGU: Ben Strozewski receives an Outstanding Student Presentation Award (OSPA) for his oral presentation “Seismic Wave Speeds of (Al,Fe)-phase H and the Detectability of Dense Oxyhydroxides in Earth’s Lower Mantle,” an honor awarded for only the most exceptional presentations during AGU Meeting. Congratulations Ben!

Many of us attended the (2023 Interior of the Earth Gordon Research Conference). Jennifer gave a talk on the Influence of Iron on Lower Mantle Heterogeneity, and Cijin and Ben presented posters on the Earth's core and dense hydrous phases in Earth's lower mantle, respectively. Vasilije, a Jackson Group alum, was selected at the GRS to be one of two speakers to give a talk during the GRC on his Ph.D. work at Caltech: Mineral Physics of FeO at Earth's Core-Mantle Boundary. Jennifer was elected Vice-Chair.

Olivia Pardo defended her Ph.D. dissertation "The elastic, electronic, and structural properties of hydrous, sulfur-bearing minerals in planetary environments: from the surface to deep interiors" in May and is part of the 2023 class of Caltech. Congratualtions Olivia! (Siesmo Lab News)

Single-grain analysis of iron's oxidation state in volcanic amphiboles: The first study of its kind (Ratchbacher et al. 2023)
(Highlight) (PDF) (more details)

Olivia Pardo wins best poster presentation at 2022 IUCr workshop, held at the Advanced Photon Source, in conjuction with the Fall AGU meeting. Congratulations Olivia! (Siesmo Lab News)

Olivia Pardo and Ben Strozewski Receive 2022 IUCr Young and Early Career Scientists Awards, held at the Advanced Photon Source, in conjuction with the Fall AGU meeting (Siesmo Lab News)

The magmatic web beneath Hawai‘i
(Highlight) (Movie)

Olivia Pardo wins the 2022 DOE NNSA SSGF Science Essay contest. The competition, open to fellows and alumni, encourages better communication of stewardship science priorities and their value to society. The essays are published in the annual DOE NNSA SSGF publication, Stewardship Science, and winners are recognized at the DOE NNSA SSGF Annual Program Review. There, they receive a cash prize, plus the opportunity to work with a professional science writer to critique and copy-edit their essays. Congratulations Olivia! (Olivia's Essay, Planetary Black Boxes)

A Pair of Techniques Explores Silicon’s Effect on Earth’s Core Temperature (APS Highlight) (PDF)

Vasilije defended his Ph.D. "Exploring Earth's core-mantle boundary with multi-technique approaches". Congratulations Vasilije! (Vasilije's website)

Vasilije Dobrosavljevic is awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Carnegie's Earth and Planets Laboratory. Congratulations Vasilije!

High-spatial resolution of Fe3+ in single-grain amphiboles using synchrotron Mössbauer spectroscopy

Anisotropic ferric oxyhydroxides (PDF)

WAVE Fellow Nina Gilkyson's Summer Research Seminar talk (2021):
“Structural and vibrational investigation of römerite, Fe(2+)Fe(3+)_2_(SO4)4·14H2O, under icy satellite conditions”

Wolfgang's career accomplishments in nuclear resonant scattering and related software development have been recognized by the International Board on the Applications of the Mössbauer Effect by receiving the 2021 IBAME Science Award. Congratulations Wolfgang!

NASA Balloon Detects California Earthquake – Next Stop, Venus? (JPL, NASA, Atlas Obscura) (Jennifer on NPR's All Things Considered)

Jennifer Jackson and Christine Thomas' book chapter on 'Seismic and mineral physics constraints on the D" layer' is published! It appears in the American Geophysical Union Monograph, Mantle Convection and Surface Expressions

Jennifer will be speaking at the Women in Earth Science Conference, London (to be re-scheduled due to COVID)

Venus and Planetary Interior research presented virtually at the 2020 Fall AGU Meeting

Ben Strozewski awarded NCAA postgraduate scholarship Congratulations Ben!

Tyler's paper on hydrated iron sulfates published in Feb 2020, Congrats Tyler and all co-authors!

2019 Fall AGU Presentations

Jennifer Jackson at Tencent's Ways to Evolve Summit, Beijing. The theme for 2019: Infinity Within (136 MB)

Jennifer Jackson's research and her group featured on YouTube

Exploring Venus with balloons!

Undergraduate student Cijin Zhou presents her research during Caltech's Summer Seminar Day

The group presents at the 2019 COMPRES Annual Meeting in Big Sky, Montana,
including the pre-meeting workshop on inelastic x-ray and nuclear resonant scattering technicques in the Earth sciences

Jennifer Jackson presents an invited talk at the Union Session, "New Discoveries in Earth's Deep Interior" at the 2019 International

Union of Geodesy and Geophysics conference in Montréal, Québec (July 2019). Photograph of Jennifer Jackson (Caltech), Barbara Romanowicz (UC Berkeley), Magali Billen (UC Davis), Christine Thomas (Univ. Münster):

Visiting undergraduate researcher, Cijin Zhou (USTC), with co-mentors Vasilije Dobrosavljevic and Jennifer Jackson (Summer 2019):

Olivia Pardo presents her research at the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE NNSA) Stewardship

Science Graduate Fellowship (SSGF) and Laboratory Residency Graduate Fellowship (LRGF) Annual Program Review, held in Washington D.C. (June 2019):

Experiments at Sector 3 of the Advanced Photon Source with Jennifer Jackson, Claire Bucholz, and group members.

Photo: Postdoctoral Scholar Barbara Ratschbacher,
Prof. Claire Bucholz,
Prof. Jennifer Jackson

Photo: PhD students Vasilije Dobrosavljevic
and Olivia Pardo,
Senior undergraduate student Lyn Li,
Prof. Jennifer Jackson

2018 Fall AGU Presentations, Washington DC

Nov. 26, 2018: Caltech Party for NASA's InSight Landing on Mars! Panel members Jennifer Jackson (Caltech) and Troy Hudson (JPL) discuss with Planetary Society's Mat Kaplan and Bruce Betts at Caltech's Beckman Auditorium during NASA's livestream. So Exciting!
Panel broadcast on Planetary Radio
YouTube video of Panel during final descent and touchdown of InSight on Mars!
Above photographs taken by Michele Judd, KISS

Anisotropic (Mg,Fe)O Magnesiowüstite: Insight into the core-mantle boundary region
(Caltech News Release), (APS News Release), (LiveScience)
(reprint)

Nuclear Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering Workshop, Argonne National Laboratory (November 2018). Hands-on tutorial given by Dr. Wolfgang Sturhahn.

Johannes Buchen joins our group as a Geophysics Postdoctoral Fellow. He received his PhD from Bayerisches Geoinstitut. Welcome Johannes! (October 2018)

Natalia Solomatova receives the 2018 AGU Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Student Research Award. Congratulations Natalia!

NASA Group Achievement Award: BALLOON-BASED PLANETARY SEISMOLOGY TEAM was cited for: Innovation in conducting the first successful balloon-based infrasound experiment using an artificial seismic source, with planned applications to planetary seismology. Thank you to the Keck Insitute for Space Studies for supporting this initiative and congratulations to the team! (August 2018)

Rachel Morrison defends her doctoral thesis, "Equations of State, Sound Velocities, and Thermoelasticity of Iron-Nickel-Silicon Alloys in the Earth's Inner Core" (August 2018). Congratulations Rachel! Rachel will join Exxon in the Upstream Research group.

Graduate student Olivia Pardo is the recipient of a Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration's Stewardship Science Graduate Fellowship (Spring 2018). Congratulations Olivia!

Jennifer Jackson is a Visiting Fellow at the Institut für Geophysik - Universität Münster, Deutschland (Winter/Spring 2018)

Graduate student Vasilije Dobrosavljevic gives a talk on Fe-rich (Mg,Fe)O and ultralow velocity zones at the American Physical Society Meeting, Los Angeles (March 2018)

We had many presentations at the Fall AGU Meeting in New Orleans, across multiple disciplines. Congratulations to everyone on their presentations!

Undergraduate student Tyler Perez presents his research at the Seismo Seminar Series (Aug. 23, 2017)

Jennifer Jackson and group members host Women in STEM, Caltech (summer 2017)

Seismic experiments near Pahrump, Nevada, were successful! A big thanks to the Keck Institute for Space Studies for supporting these measurements and the entire study. (summer 2017)

Congratulations Dr. Natalia Solomatova! Natalia defended her PhD thesis, "Iron-bearing oxides, silicate glasses and carbonates at lower mantle pressures", May 23, 2017

March for Science! Rachel participates in the March for Science in Los Angeles and Jennifer paticipates in Lille, France (April 22, 2017)

Natalia hosts pre-frosh students in the diamond-anvil cell lab (April 19, 2017)

Jennifer is a Visiting Professor at the University of Lille with Prof. Patrick Cordier and PhD student Riccardo Reali, working on the rheology of lower mantle phases (April, October 2017)

Greg Finkelstein is now the Lab Manager at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, which is part of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Congratulations Greg!

Nuclear resonant inelastic x-ray scattering and PHOENIX tutorial at Caltech, by Wolfgang Sturhahn (Feb. 2017)

Itaru Ohira, is a visiting PhD student from Tohoku University (Feb-March 2017)

Natalia Solomatova gave a talk about her work on silicate glasses at high pressures at the 2016 Fall AGU

Jennifer Jackson gave an invited talk at the 2016 Fall AGU, on behalf of the KISS Team: Infrasonic and seismic methods to investigate the interior of Venus

Jennifer Jackson and group members postdoc Greg Finkelstein, graduate student Natalia Solomatova, and undergraduate student Tyler Perez host Women in STEM (summer 2016)

Rachel Morrison receives one of the Springer Poster Presentation Awards at the 2016 COMPRES annual meeting for her presentation of "Equations of State of Fe-Ni and Fe-Ni-Si at High Pressure". The award is a 150 Euro book voucher from Springer-Verlag. Congratulations Rachel!

Congratulations to Natalia Solomatova for receiving the GPS Division Teaching Assistant award for Ge 164 Mineral Physics (June 3, 2016)!

Natalia Solomatova will present her research on carbonates and amorphous silicates at the 2016 Goldschmidt conference held in Yokohama, Japan

Rachel Morrison invited to give a talk at the 2016 Research at High Pressure Gordon Research Seminar

CSEDI grant awarded to Jackson (PI), Gurnis, Zhan, and Helmberger (Caltech): Integrated seismic, geodynamic, and mineral physics studies of the deepest lower mantle (2016)