Robert is a program manager at the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. His expertise is solid-state NMR and imaging of geochemical systems, polymers and catalysts.

Dudley Herschbach was born in San Jose, California (1932) and received his B.S. degree in Mathematics (1954) and M.S. in Chemistry (1955) at Stanford University, followed by an A.M. degree in Physics (1956) and Ph.D. in Chemical Physics (1958) at Harvard. After a term as Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard (1957-1959), he was a member of the Chemical Faculty at the University of California, Berkeley (1959-1963), before returning to Harvard as Professor of Chemistry (1963), where he is now Baird Professor of Science (since 1976). more »

Caroline M. Jonsson is a postdoctoral fellow and visiting scientist from Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. She is a chemist with great experience in solution and surface chemistry, in particular the interaction of organic molecules on the surface of oxyhydroxide minerals in aqueous solutions. This may be of importance for the origin of life, as well as for the fate of organic compounds in the environment. Caroline’s research at the Geophysical Laboratory at Carnegie Institution of Washington is part of a project studying the origin of life, and focuses on the adsorption of amino acids on the surface of well-characterized mineral particles. She is performing experimental work, including potentiometric titrations, adsorption experiments, and different types of spectroscopic and chromatographic measurements, but is also involved in surface complexation modeling and calculations. more »

Christopher L. Jonsson is a visiting researcher from Johns Hopkins University, the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, with a background in chemistry. His research explores the solid solution interface between organic molecules and oxyhydroxide surfaces. This is of high interest in many different chemical communities, e.g. to study the behavior of herbicides in the environment, of implants in the body, and the origin of life. The main research focus at the Geophysical laboratory at Carnegie Institution of Washington is to explore the chemistry behind the origin of life, with the hypothesis that life emerged at the solid/solution interface. more »

Tetsuya Komabayashi's research interest is to understand the structure, composition, and dynamics of the deep Earth from phase relations of the mantle and the core materials on the basis of high-pressure and -temperature (P-T) experiments and thermodynamic calculations. He has been working on phase relations of hydrous peridotite systems with implications for water circulation in the Earth’s deep mantle from the high-P-T experiments and thermodynamic calculations. His current research at the Geophysical Laboratory is on phase relations of the pure iron at high-P-T conditions with implications for the composition and structure of the Earth’s core. Presently, he is developing a new heating technique in a diamond anvil cell (DAC) at the Geophysical Laboratory. It is an internal resistive-heated DAC where a metallic foil is put in the sample chamber. more »

Takahiro Kuribayashi is interested in high-pressure single crystal X-ray diffraction experiments to analyze crystal structures under extreme conditions with the use of diamond anvil cell (DAC) with synchrotron radiations of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) in USA. This single-crystal synchrotron X-ray diffraction studies under extreme high-pressure (about over 30 GPa) conditions will start at the Advanced Photon Source on beamlines at GSECARS and HPCAT with Drs. Hemley, Mao, and Yamanaka. His current researches on mantle minerals including subduction minerals, having largely problems in mineralogy and geophysics, are executed based on the crystallographic approach, and are focused on the physical and chemical properties of minerals such as the effects of hydrogen bonding and OH⇔F replacements on the compressibility of minerals, and the behaviors of hydrogen under high-pressures. more »

Zhiguo Liu is a visiting investigator, joining the Geophysical Laboratory in October 2007. He is working on physical properties of rare earth transition metal oxides under extreme conditions. Zhiguo is working with Dr. Yingwei Fei. more »

Takamitsu Yamanaka is Emeritus Professor of Osaka University Japan now. He was Professor of Department of Earth and Space Science and Professor of Center for Quantum Science and Technology under Extreme Conditions, Osaka University. He is a Member of National Science Council of Japan belonging to Japanese cabinet since 2003. He is President of International Mineralogical Association (IMA). Currently He is also working in the organizing committee of International Union of Crystallography (IUCr-2008 at Osaka). One of his science interests is crystal physics facing to electron-lattice and spin-lattice correlation in earth’s interiors under extreme conditions. more »