BES: Interdisciplinary opportunities in mineral sciences: from nanoscale to the moon

Abstract:

Mineralogy is an ancient science, with writings on mineral properties dating to the 4th Century BC across cultures. Today, minerals are viewed as the containers of ingredients needed to develop the low-carbon economy, and before long mining will occur off the Earth. Mineral sciences are broad, and that perspective brings opportunity for interdisciplinary collaborations across fields of science, engineering and medicine. Originally driven to study mineral properties at extreme conditions of pressure, temperature, radiation, etc. in geophysical sciences, through collaborative opportunities my journey in the mineral sciences has led to technology transfer wherein extreme environments are the vehicle to create, modify or control material properties with some fundamental science applications in energy, nanotechnology and offworld construction.

Bio:

Steve Jacobsen is Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Northwestern University and Faculty Affiliate of the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy, and the Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience at Northwestern. He received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) through the National Science Foundation, a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, and was Editor of Geophysical Research Letters from 2018-2023. Prior to joining Northwestern, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bavarian Geoinstitute in Germany, and the Barbara McClintock Postdoctoral Fellow at the Earth and Planets Laboratory at Carnegie Institution for Science. He received his Ph.D. in geophysics in 2001 from the University of Colorado Boulder.