Planetary Sciences

Planetary Sciences

Dimitar Sasselov

Dimitar Sasselov

Phillips Professor of Astronomy
Director, Origins of Life Initiative
Affiliated Faculty Member of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research Interests:  Professor Sasselov studies, among other things, extrasolar planets, and he's a co-investigator on NASA's Kepler...

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Perkin Lab, P-336
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
60 Garden Street, MS-16
Cambridge, MA 02138
p: (617) 495-7451
Roger Fu

Roger Fu

John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences
Head Tutor

Research interests include the formation and interior evolution of the Earth and other planetary bodies.  Roger's primary tool is paleomagnetism, which he complements with geodynamical modeling. 

Research Group Coordinator:

20 Oxford St.
Geo Museum 204B
p: 617-384-6991
Rebecca  Fischer

Rebecca Fischer

Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Accretion, core formation, and composition of the deep interiors of Earth and other terrestrial planets. She combines high-pressure, high-temperature mineral physics experiments with planetary-scale modeling.

Fischer received a B.A. in Earth and Planetary Sciences and Integrated Science from Northwestern University in 2009, and a Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2015.

Research Group Coordinator: Stephanie Clayman

Office location: Geological Museum 204C
Mailing address: 20 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138
p: 617-384-6992
Robin Wordsworth

Robin Wordsworth

Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Theoretical and numerical modelling of planetary climate; paleoclimates of Earth and Mars, exoplanet atmospheric composition and habitability, radiative transfer, geophysical fluid dynamics

Geological Museum 451

Administrative Support:
Emma Sachi Duncan - Pierce 232 617-496-2145
eduncan@seas.harvard.edu
Jerry Mitrovica

Jerry Mitrovica

Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science

Jerry X. Mitrovica joined Harvard in 2009 as a Professor of Geophysics.His work focuses on the Earth's response to external and internal forcings that have time scales ranging from seconds to billions of years. He has written extensively on topics ranging from the connection of mantle convective flow to the geological record, the rotational stability of the Earth and other terrestrial planets, ice age geodynamics, and the geodetic and geophysical signatures of ice sheet melting in our progressively warming world. Sea-level change has served as the major theme of these studies, with particular emphasis on critical events in ice age climate and on the sea-level fingerprints of modern polar ice sheet collapse.

Mitrovica is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University. He is a former Director of the Earth Systems Evolution Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and J. Tuzo Wilson Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, where he also received his Ph.D. degree. He is the recipient of the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America, the W.S Jardetsky Medal from Columbia University, the A.E.H. Love Medal from the European Geosciences Union and the Rutherford Memorial Medal from the Royal Society of Canada. He is also a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America, as well as a past Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Research Group Coordinator:

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Office location: Geological Museum 203B
Mailing address: EPS, 20 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
p: 617-496-2732, f: 617-495-8839
Daniel Schrag

Daniel Schrag

Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program

 

Daniel P. Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering, and Co-Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program.

Schrag studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth history. He is particularly interested in how information on climate change from the geologic past can lead to better understanding of anthropogenic climate change in the future. In addition to his work on geochemistry and climatology, Schrag studies energy technology and policy, including carbon capture and storage and low-carbon synthetic fuels.

From 2009-2017, Schrag served on  President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  Among various honors, he is the recipient of the James B. Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union and a MacArthur Fellowship. Schrag earned a B.S. in geology and geophysics and political science from Yale University and his Ph.D. in geology from the University of California at Berkeley. He came to Harvard in 1997 after teaching at Princeton.

Geochemical oceanography, paleoclimatology, stable isotope geochemistry.

Assistant: Cayla Jett

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Room 433F
26 Oxford St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
p: (617) 495-7676, f: (617) 496-0425
Andrew Knoll

Andrew Knoll

Fisher Professor of Natural History; Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus

Andy Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University. He received his B.A. in Geology from Lehigh University in 1973 and his Ph.D., also in Geology, from Harvard in 1977.... Read more about Andrew Knoll

Harvard University Botanical Museum
26 Oxford St.
Cambridge MA 02138

Office location: Botanical Museum Room 50
p: 617-495-9306, f: 617-495-5667
Photo of Jeremy Bloxham

Jeremy Bloxham

Mallinckrodt Professor of Geophysics

Planetary magnetic fields, dynamo theory, structure and dynamics of the earth's core and lower mantle, inverse theory, mathematical geophysics.

Research Group Coordinator:

Geological Museum 201
p: 617-495-9517 f: 617-496-1240

Reginald A. Daly Postdoctoral Research Fellowship - Accepting Applications

October 10, 2023

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences 
Harvard University 
Reginald A. Daly Postdoctoral Research Fellowship 


The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University invites applicants for the Reginald A. Daly Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.  

The Department seeks candidates in the broad field of Earth and Planetary Sciences including but not limited to geology, geochemistry, geobiology, geodynamics, petrology,...

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JJ Dong

JJ Dong receives multiple 2023 AGU awards

September 15, 2023

Recent graduate Junjie Dong won multiple 2023 AGU awards, including the Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award and the Study of Earth's Deep Interior Graduate Research Award. The Mineral and Rock Physics Graduate Research Award recognizes outstanding contributions to the field of mineral and rock physics achieved during the honoree's Ph.D. research. The Study of Earth's Deep Interior Graduate Research Award is p...

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2023 Oct 30

EPS Colloquium - Marc Hirschmann, University of Minnesota

12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

Geo Mus 102 (Haller Hall) and Zoom

The Deep Earth Oxygen Cycle

Earth’s mantle has been oxidized compared to its cosmochemical building blocks since the earliest Hadean. This oxidation is linked to Earth’s initial differentiation, including processes in magma oceans, but these remain poorly understood. During its subsequent evolution to the present, Earth has developed a substantial oxidized surface reservoir that amounts to approximately 20% of the oxidative power of the accessible Earth, with the other 80% remaining in the mantle. This surface reservoir is essential to the modern surface environment, but...

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