About

I am a Research Scientist at Carnegie Geophysical Lab studying melting, pre-melting, superconductivity, and the glass transition at high pressures. My broader goals are to improve understanding of (1) the Earth's deep interior, and (2) the physics of melting, amorphization, and superconducting transitions.

Currently, my favorite project is watching metals melt under very high pressure by pulsing 10s of amperes of current through tiny strips of metals crushed between the tips of diamonds, as in the photo below.

(a) Schematic cross-section of Earth's layers from inner core (yellow) to crust (brown).

(b) Schematic cross-section of a diamond anvil cell experiment mimicking heat flow across the thermal boundary layer at the bottom of the Earth's mantle

(c) Schematic cross-section of a diamond anvil cell experiment mimicking the thermodynamics of the Earth's core

(d) Photo of an electrical circuit crushed between two diamonds to 1 million atmospheres of pressure and pulsed-heated to 5000 K