George D. Cody conducts chemical-structural analysis of solid phase organics; determination of diagenetic reactions which define organic sediment maturation.

He is an organic geochemist whose current research includes the study of the molecular structure of extraterrestrial organic solids contained within carbonaceous chondritic meteorites and more recently Comets. This research seeks to understand the earliest Solar System history as recorded in the complex text of organic chemistry. George is also active in the area of transition metal sulfide catalyzed organic reactions with a particular focus of relating this chemistry to the problem of the origins of life early in Earth’s history. George runs these experiments in the Hydrothermal Experimental Laboratory that provides multiple cold seal pressure devices (pressures up to 4000 bars, equivalent to a depth of 15 km into the Earth) and a duel reservoir all titanium high pressure flow reactor (pressures up to 400 bars, equivalent to that at hydrothermal vents at the floor of a 4 km deep ocean). more »

Ronald Cohen received a B.S., Geology in 1979 from Indiana University and a Ph. D. in Geology from Harvard University in 1985. He was a National Research Council Cooperative Research Associate in 1985-1987 at the Naval Research Laboratory and a Research Physicist at NRL from 1987-1990. He has been a Research Geophysicist at the Geophysical Laboratory since 1990. He was Visiting Professor of Materials Science and Geophysics 2000-2001 at the California Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of American Physical Society, Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America. He received the Doornbos Memorial Prize from International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth’s Interior (IASPEI) in 1994 and the Mineralogical Society of America Award in 1994. more »

Yingwei Fei studies materials at high pressure and temperature, including phase transitions, element partitioning, melting relations, chemical reactions, and physical properties, with applications in geophysics, petrology, mineral physics, geochemistry, and planetary sciences.

Fei received his B. S. from Zhejiang University, China (1982), and Ph.D. from City University of New York (1989). He was awarded a Distinguished Scholar Dissertation Award from the University for his thesis work on thermodynamics of reactions at high pressure and high temperature. He joined the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1988, and is now a senior staff scientist at the Institution. more »

Marilyn L. Fogel works in astrobiology, and stable isotopic biogeochemistry of modern and fossil ecosystems. She is a biogeochemist specializing in the use of stable isotopes to trace biochemical and geochemical processes.

She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in 1997 with a degree in Botany. For two years, she worked in the laboratory of Thomas C. Hoering as a postdoctoral fellow at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, before she was hired as a permanent staff member there. Fogel has worked on marine, estuarine, and terrestrial ecosystems both in modern and ancient settings. She has pioneered studies of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotopes in organic and inorganic materials.

Her work on the paleoclimate of Australia demonstrated that humans had a major impact on the continental ecology that led to the extinction of most of Australia's megafauna. more »

High-pressure researcher Alexander Goncharov conducts experimental studies of materials under extreme conditions of high pressure and temperature using optical spectroscopy and other techniques.

Goncharov, a Geophysical Lab alumni from 1993 to 2002, returned to the department as a staff member in summer of 2005. Goncharov came to Carnegie initially as a Fellow. He then became a Senior Research Associate and then a Research Scientist. In 2006 he left his post as a staff scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to rejoin Carnegie. more »

Robert M. Hazen researches the origins of life and the emergence of prebiotic chemical complexity; interactions between crystalline solids and organic molecules; possible roles of minerals in the origin of life. Robert M. Hazen, research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Geophysical Laboratory and Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George Mason University, received the B.S. and S.M. in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1971), and the Ph.D. at Harvard University in earth science (1975). After studies as NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Cambridge University in England, he joined the Carnegie Institution’s research effort.

Hazen is author of more than 300 articles and 19 books on science, history, and music.

Russell J. Hemley works with high-pressure properties of materials; optical spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction, and diamond-cell techniques; solid hydrogen; applications of high-pressure research to geophysics, geochemistry, and planetary sciences; theoretical condensed-matter physics and chemistry.

Russell J. Hemley's research explores the chemistry of materials over a broad range of thermodynamic conditions from low to very high pressures. He began his research career in molecular spectroscopy and electronic structure theory. An interest in the effects of high pressures on materials led him to the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. There he began to apply and extend chemical physics techniques in high-pressure diamond anvil cell experiments. more »

Dr. Wesley T. Huntress, Jr. is an astrochemist, specializing in chemical processes in the interstellar medium, comets, and planetary atmospheres.

Dr. Huntress is a staff member and former Director at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, where fundamental laboratory research is conducted in geochemistry, geobiology, and physical chemistry at high pressures related to earth and planetary science. more »

Dr. T. Neil Irvine received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1959.  His interests include field, analytical, and experimental studies of petrology, ore deposits, tectonic settings, and layered igneous intrusions.

Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao works in ultra-high pressure physics, chemistry, material sciences, geophysics, geochemistry, and planetary sciences using the diamond-anvil cell.

Mao received his B.S. in Geology (1963) from the National Taiwan University, and M.S. (1966) and Ph.D. (1968) from the University of Rochester, where he conducted high-pressure deep Earth research under the guidance of Professors Bill Bassett and Taro Takahashi. He started as a Postdoctoral Fellow working with Dr. Peter M. Bell at the Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, and later became a Staff Geophysicist there ever since. During the past four decades, he has pioneered the development of high-pressure diamond-anvil cell techniques and a wide range of synchrotron x-ray, neutron, optical, electrical, and magnetic probes for in-situ diagnosis of samples under extreme pressures and temperatures. more »

Bjørn O. Mysen conducts experimental high-temperature and pressure studies; properties and processes of rock-forming and related materials with an emphasis on melting, phase relations of mantle materials, fluids in melting processes, properties and structure of melts and glasses; element partitioning between minerals, fluids, and melts at high pressures and temperatures.

Mysen is an experimental geochemist whose research is focused on experimental characterization materials and energy transport in the Earth and terrestrial planets. These transport processes are governed by thermochemical, rheological, and transport properties of melts, minerals and fluids at high temperatures and pressures. Experimental studies are conducted aimed at quantitative modeling of these properties depends on characterization of structure and relationships between structure and properties of these rock-forming materials. more »

Douglas Rumble III conducts field and laboratory studies of crustal fluid flow, with an emphasis on micro-analysis of stable isotope ratios with a laserprobe.Douglas Rumble received a B.A. from Columbia College, NY, NY (1960) and a PhD from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (1969). He was a Carnegie Fellow at the Geophysical Laboratory with F.R. Boyd, 1969 to 1971 and Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1971 to 1973. He has been a staff scientist in petrology and geochemistry at the Geophysical Laboratory since 1973. He served as a program director in the Division of Earth Sciences, National Science Foundation, 1985 to 1987. He is a past-President of both the Geological Society of Washington and the Mineralogical Society of America. He is a Fellow of the Geochemical Society, the Geological Society of America, and the Mineralogical Society of America. more »

Andrew Steele uses traditional and biotechnology approaches for the detection of microbial life in an astrobiology and solar system exploration.

He has been a staff member at the Geophysical Laboratory since 2001. A microbiologist by training and Astrobiologist by choice, his principle interest is in developing protocols, instrumentation and procedures for life detection in samples from the early earth and elsewhere in the solar system. His interest in this work began when working with Dave McKay of NASA Johnson Space Centre, after the release of his paper on the potential for life in the Mars meteorite ALH84001. In the years since, he has developed several instrument concepts for future Mars missions, has become involved in the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory mission as a member of the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) team, is part of developing life marker chip technology, a technique he pioneered, for the European ExoMars mission. more »

Viktor V. Struzhkin conducts experimental research at high pressures: transport and magnetic measurements, optical and synchrotron spectroscopy in application to geophysics, planetary sciences, and condensed matter physics.

Struzhkin holds a B.S. & M.S. in physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (1980), a Ph.D. in solid-state physics from Institute for High-Pressure Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences (IHPP, RAS) (1991). He is staff member of the Geophysical Laboratory. At the Carnegie Institution, he pioneered a suit of transport measurements in diamond anvil cells succeeding in measurements of superconductivity at very high pressures in excess of 200 GPa (2 million atmospheres). more »