Department of Earth, Environmental & Planetary Sciences

Karen M. Fischer

Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor of Geological Sciences
GeoChem Building
Room 158
Research Interests Geophysics, Tectonics Volcanology and Petrology
Pronouns she/her
Concentration Advisor for Geophysics and Climate Physics

Biography

Karen M. Fischer is a seismologist who studies the structure and dynamics of Earth's interior. Her work focuses on understanding the lithosphere and asthenosphere, how these layers are created, deform and evolve over time, and their roles in plate tectonics and mantle convection.  She and her group analyze and model large datasets of seismic waveform data to measure the structure of the crust and mantle, including the signatures of present-day and ancient plate boundaries, mantle flow, and mantle melting processes. This work involves field-based seismometer experiments and the development of new methods to resolve Earth structure with seismic waves.  Karen is a recipient of the Inge Lehmann Medal (American Geophysical Union), the Harry Fielding Reid Medal (Seismological Society of America) and the W. S. Jardetzky Medal (Columbia University).  She is an American Geophysical Union Fellow and Beno Gutenberg Lecturer.  At Brown her work has been recognized with the Royce Family Professorship in Teaching Excellence, the Karen T. Romer Award for Undergraduate Advising and Mentoring, and the Meenakshi Narain Excellence in Research Mentoring Award.  She earned her B.S. from Yale University (1983) and her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1989), and she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

Recent News

With their election to the prestigious honor society, eight members of the Brown University faculty join the nation’s leading scholars in science, public affairs, business, arts and the humanities.
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The Brown Daily Herald shares an in-depth remembrance of Jan Tullis and her decades of groundbreaking research and influential mentorship. Julia Grossman ’23 shared her first impressions of Jan, saying “One: this woman is incredible and she’s calling me partner. I don’t know what that means but I like it. Two: she has really strong opinions and usually they are correct. Three: I know I’m going to be taken care of here."
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The Publics Radio

East Coast earthquake felt in Rhode Island

Rhode Island was among several East Coast states that felt a small earthquake on Friday morning, April 5th. Brown University Professor of Geological Sciences Karen Fischer says even though the quake was small, it was felt in multiple states because of the geologic makeup of the East Coast.
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Recent Postdoctoral Research Fellow Kai-Xun Chen has published a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, titled “Seismic evidence for a mid-lithospheric discontinuity in 155 million-year-old Pacific lithosphere. Consistent with now-frozen melt that was trapped in the young lithosphere close to the ridge.” The publication lays out evidence for a low velocity layer inside old oceanic lithosphere. Dr. Chen completed this research while he was a postdoctoral researcher in DEEPS, working with Prof. Don Forsyth and Prof. Karen Fischer.
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News from DEEPS

Careers Day 2023

At the annual Careers Day, DEEPS students and community members had the opportunity to hear from two alumni, Isabella Gama Dantas and Mali'o Kodis, about their career journeys outside academia. 
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