Luisa Fernanda Chavarria Chavarria
Graduate Student, Michigan State University
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About
Luisa is an Earth Sciences graduate student at Michigan State University working with the CDAC partner Dr. Susannah Dorfman. She is interested in the physical properties of minerals under high pressures and temperatures inside the Earth and planetary mantles. Her previous research experience focused on studying natural high-pressure minerals inside melt veins in shocked meteorites at the Institute for Planetary Materials in Japan using in-situ techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, EPMA, and SEM. She has studied crust thickness using mineral chemistry and thermobarometry of amphibole-plagioclase using EPMA. In her Ph.D. research, she is currently investigating the mechanism of Na-incorporation in (Mg, Fe)O ferropericlase/magnesiowüstite to track sodium in the Earth’s deep mantle. She generates extreme conditions using diamond anvil cell. She analyzes the results using various techniques like in-situ synchrotron x-ray diffraction and ex-situ FIB, SEM, and TEM. As a Ph.D. student, she will use crystallography to contribute to a deeper understanding of the physical and chemical properties of minerals and their role in Earth and planetary formation.