Tamsin Mather

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Tamsin Mather

MAE
Tamsin Mather at the summit of Villarrica volcano, Chile.jpg
Tamsin Mather at the summit of Villarrica volcano, Chile in 2003
Born
Tamsin Alice Mather

(1976-12-15) 15 December 1976 (age 46) [1] [2]
Bristol, [3] England
Alma mater University of Cambridge (MSci, MPhil, PhD)
ChildrenTwo [4]
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Volcanology [5]
Atmospheric chemistry [5]
Institutions University of Oxford
Thesis Near-source chemistry of tropospheric volcanic plumes  (2004)
Website www.earth.ox.ac.uk/people/mather OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Tamsin Alice Mather MAE (born 1976) [1] [2] [3] is a British Professor of Earth Sciences at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford [5] [6] [7] [8] and a Fellow of University College, Oxford. [9] She studies volcanic processes and their impacts on the Earth's environment [10] and has appeared on the television and radio.

Contents

Education

Mather was born in Bristol on 15 December 1976, the daughter of William Mather and Felicity Mather. [3] She was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where she was awarded a Master of Science degree in 1999, a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degree in 2000 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2004. [1] [11] As an undergraduate she studied the Natural Sciences Tripos before switching to the History and Philosophy of Science for her MPhil (in the same MPhil class as Helen Macdonald and Katherine Angel). [1] She spent a year working abroad before returning to science for her PhD which was completed in the Department of Earth Sciences and investigated the chemistry of volcanic plumes in the troposphere. [11] [12] [13] Her PhD involved working in Chile, Nicaragua and Italy. [13] [14]

Career and research

Mather studies volcanic behaviour working to understand volcanoes as natural hazards, planetary scale processes and natural resources. [15] [16] Mather is a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford and a fellow of University College, Oxford. [17]

She is part of the Centre for the Observation and Modeling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET) project, [18] which is a “collaborative centre for understanding tectonic and volcanic processes and hazards though the integrated application of Earth Observation (EO) data, ground-based measurements, and geophysical models”.

Other current/recent projects include: the European Research Council funded project Revealing hidden volcanic triggers for global environmental change events in Earth’s geological past using mercury (Hg); the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded RiftVolc project, [19] researching past and current volcanism and volcanic hazards in the main Ethiopian rift; the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded Volatiles, Geodynamics & Solid Earth Controls on the Habitable Planet programme researching deep Earth influences in the long-term evolution of the Earth; [20] the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Areas collaboration, (STREVA) which looked to establish a risk assessment framework for volcanoes. [21]

Her research into the role of volcanism in planetary scale processes [22] includes the discovery that volcanic vents perform nitrogen fixation making it available to for use by life, possibly a significant source on the early Earth as life was evolving. [23] [24]

Mather's other research includes investigations into volcanic plumes, [25] the effects of volcanic emissions and aerosols on the environment, and the structure and stability of volcanoes. [26] She has also studied the emissions from Buncefield fire at the Buncefield oil depot in 2005 [26] and is interested in the mercury cycle, [27] as well as other biogeochemical cycles.

Mather has led or collaborated on work studying volcanoes around the world, both in situ and using remote sensing data from ground or satellite based platforms. [4] Volcanoes Mather has studied include Bárðarbunga, [28] Hekla, [29] and Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, [30] the Santorini caldera in Greece, [31] the Villarica, Lascar, Chaitén [32] and Calbuco volcanoes in Chile, [33] [13] [34] Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua [35] (where she was held up at gunpoint), [4] [36] Mount Etna in Italy, [37] Galeras in Colombia, [38] the Santiaguito lava dome complex in Guatemala, [39] and the Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia. [19] [40]

Mather's research has been funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), [41] the European Research Council and the Royal Society. [22]

In 2005 she served as a Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) Fellow [42] producing a POSTnote note on Carbon capture and storage, [43] she served as co-editor-in-chief of Earth and Planetary Science Letters 2014–2019, served on the board of directors of the Geochemical Society 2017–2019, [42] on the Natural Environment Research Council Science Board/Committee 2017–2021 and on the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program Science Advisory Group 2019–2022.

Media and outreach

In 2016 Mather appeared on the BBC World Service discussing volcanoes and earthquakes. [44] Mather was interviewed on BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific in 2017. [4] She has taken part in Pint of Science, lectured at the Royal Institution [45] [46] and appeared on podcasts. [4] She was a guest on The Infinite Monkey Cage alongside Jo Brand and Clive Oppenheimer in February 2018 [47] and spoke at New Scientist Live in 2018. [12]

Awards and honours

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Mather, Tamsin (2013). "Tamsin Mather CV" (PDF). earth.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 Tamsin Mather at Library of Congress
  3. 1 2 3 Anon (2019). "Mather, Prof. Tamsin Alice" . Who's Who (online Oxford University Press  ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U290852.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Al-Khalili, Jim (2017). "Tamsin Mather on what volcanic plumes reveal about our planet". bbc.co.uk. BBC . Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  5. 1 2 3 Tamsin Mather publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  6. ↑ Tamsin Mather publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  7. ↑ "Tamsin Mather's home page". Earth.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  8. ↑ "Department of Earth Sciences » Tamsin Mather". Earth.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  9. ↑ "Tamsin Mather - University College Oxford". Univ.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  10. ↑ Pyle, D.M.; Mather, T.A. (2009). "Halogens in igneous processes and their fluxes to the atmosphere and oceans from volcanic activity: A review". Chemical Geology. 263 (1–4): 110–121. Bibcode:2009ChGeo.263..110P. doi:10.1016/j.chemgeo.2008.11.013. ISSN   0009-2541. S2CID   129568822.
  11. 1 2 Mather, Tamsin Alice (2004). Near-source chemistry of tropospheric volcanic plumes. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC   890159789. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.616245.
  12. 1 2 "Tamsin Mather". live.newscientist.com. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 Forde, Anne (2005). "A Volcanologist's Vista". sciencemag.org. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  14. ↑ "Meet Tamsin Mather, a volcanologist who cameos in the Mars Diary". marsdiary.org. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  15. ↑ "We could power the world with volcanoes". futurism.com. 15 November 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  16. ↑ "Tamsin Mather". theconversation.com. 20 June 2017. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  17. ↑ "Professor Tamsin Mather". ox.ac.uk. University of Oxford. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  18. ↑ "Welcome to the Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET)". Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics.
  19. 1 2 "Rift Volcanism: Past, Present and Future". ed.ac.uk. University of Edinburgh.
  20. ↑ "Deep Volatiles".
  21. ↑ "What we do". streva.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  22. 1 2 3 Anon (2018). "Tamsin Mather". royalsociety.org. Royal Society . Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  23. ↑ "Why more women should consider a career in science". The Guardian . 22 July 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  24. ↑ Martin, Jason (20 July 2009). "Oxford teacher's volcano ventures" . Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  25. ↑ Mather, T. A.; Pyle, D. M.; Oppenheimer, C. (2003). "Tropospheric volcanic aerosol". Volcanism and the Earth's Atmosphere. Geophysical Monograph Series. Vol. 139. pp. 189–212. doi:10.1029/139GM12. ISBN   0-87590-998-1. ISSN   0065-8448.
  26. 1 2 "Professor Tamsin Mather - University of Oxford". Ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  27. ↑ Pyle, David M.; Mather, Tamsin A. (2003). "The importance of volcanic emissions for the global atmospheric mercury cycle". Atmospheric Environment. 37 (36): 5115–5124. Bibcode:2003AtmEn..37.5115P. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2003.07.011. ISSN   1352-2310.
  28. ↑ Schmidt, Anja; Leadbetter, Susan; Theys, Nicolas; Carboni, Elisa; Witham, Claire S.; Stevenson, John A.; Birch, Cathryn E.; Thordarson, Thorvaldur; Turnock, Steven; Barsotti, Sara; Delaney, Lin; Feng, Wuhu; Grainger, Roy G.; Hort, Matthew C.; Höskuldsson, Ármann; Ialongo, Iolanda; Ilyinskaya, Evgenia; Jóhannsson, Thorsteinn; Kenny, Patrick; Mather, Tamsin A.; Richards, Nigel A. D.; Shepherd, Janet (2015). "Satellite detection, long-range transport, and air quality impacts of volcanic sulfur dioxide from the 2014-2015 flood lava eruption at Bárðarbunga (Iceland)" (PDF). Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 120 (18): 9739–9757. Bibcode:2015JGRD..120.9739S. doi: 10.1002/2015JD023638 . ISSN   2169-897X.
  29. ↑ Rose, William I.; Millard, Genevieve A.; Mather, Tamsin A.; Hunton, Donald E.; Anderson, Bruce; Oppenheimer, Clive; Thornton, Brett F.; Gerlach, Terrence M.; Viggiano, Albert A.; Kondo, Yutaka; Miller, Thomas M.; Ballenthin, John O. (2006). "Atmospheric chemistry of a 33–34 hour old volcanic cloud from Hekla Volcano (Iceland): Insights from direct sampling and the application of chemical box modeling". Journal of Geophysical Research . 111 (D20). Bibcode:2006JGRD..11120206R. doi: 10.1029/2005JD006872 . ISSN   0148-0227.
  30. ↑ Harrison, R G; Nicoll, K A; Ulanowski, Z; Mather, T A (2010). "Self-charging of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic ash plume". Environmental Research Letters. 5 (2): 024004. Bibcode:2010ERL.....5b4004H. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/5/2/024004 . ISSN   1748-9326.
  31. ↑ Parks, Michelle M.; Biggs, Juliet; England, Philip; Mather, Tamsin A.; Nomikou, Paraskevi; Palamartchouk, Kirill; Papanikolaou, Xanthos; Paradissis, Demitris; Parsons, Barry; Pyle, David M.; Raptakis, Costas; Zacharis, Vangelis (2012). "Evolution of Santorini Volcano dominated by episodic and rapid fluxes of melt from depth". Nature Geoscience . 5 (10): 749–754. Bibcode:2012NatGe...5..749P. doi:10.1038/ngeo1562. ISSN   1752-0894. Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  32. ↑ Watt, Sebastian F. L.; Pyle, David M.; Mather, Tamsin A.; Martin, Robert S.; Matthews, Naomi E. (2009). "Fallout and distribution of volcanic ash over Argentina following the May 2008 explosive eruption of Chaitén, Chile". Journal of Geophysical Research. 114 (B4). Bibcode:2009JGRB..114.4207W. doi: 10.1029/2008JB006219 . ISSN   0148-0227.
  33. ↑ "Professor Tamsin A. Mather" (PDF). earth.ox.ac.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 April 2018.
  34. ↑ Mather, T. A.; Tsanev, V. I.; Pyle, D. M.; McGonigle, A. J. S.; Oppenheimer, C.; Allen, A. G. (2004). "Characterization and evolution of tropospheric plumes from Lascar and Villarrica volcanoes, Chile". Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 109 (D21): n/a. Bibcode:2004JGRD..10921303M. doi: 10.1029/2004JD004934 . ISSN   0148-0227.
  35. ↑ Mather, T. A.; Allen, A. G.; Oppenheimer, C.; Pyle, D. M.; McGonigle, A. J. S. (2003). "Size-Resolved Characterisation of Soluble Ions in the Particles in the Tropospheric Plume of Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua: Origins and Plume Processing". Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry. 46 (3): 207–237. Bibcode:2003JAtC...46..207M. doi:10.1023/A:1026327502060. ISSN   0167-7764. S2CID   91232105.
  36. ↑ "Bandits must've seen our car on the crater rim; two guys with a rifle and a machete turned up". sciencefocus.com. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  37. ↑ Martin, R. S.; Mather, T. A.; Pyle, D. M.; Power, M.; Allen, A. G.; Aiuppa, A.; Horwell, C. J.; Ward, E. P. W. (2008). "Composition-resolved size distributions of volcanic aerosols in the Mt. Etna plumes". Journal of Geophysical Research. 113 (D17). Bibcode:2008JGRD..11317211M. doi: 10.1029/2007JD009648 . ISSN   0148-0227.
  38. ↑ Parks, Michelle (2013). Volcanic processes during eruption and unrest : combining satellite and ground-based monitoring at Galeras and Santorini volcanoes. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.588458.
  39. ↑ Scott, Jeannie A. J. (2013). Origin and evolution of the Santiaguito lava dome complex, Guatemala. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.600026. Lock-green.svg
  40. ↑ Hutchison, William (2015). Past, present and future volcanic activity at restless calderas in the Main Ethiopian Rift. ora.ox.ac.uk (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.714049.
  41. ↑ "GTR". Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  42. 1 2 "2018 Board of Directors :: Geochemical Society". geochemsoc.org. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  43. ↑ "Carbon capture and storage (CCS), March 2005". 7 January 2021.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  44. ↑ Anon (2016). "The Unpredictable Planet: Understanding Volcanoes and Earthquakes, The Forum - BBC World Service". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  45. ↑ "The science beneath our feet: De-extinction and volcanoes". rigb.org. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  46. ↑ "Volcanic violence and magnetic madness". pintofscience.co.uk. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  47. ↑ "Volcanoes, Series 17, The Infinite Monkey Cage". bbc.co.uk. BBC . Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  48. ↑ "Geochemistry Fellows: Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry". eag.eu.com.
  49. ↑ "Academia Europaea Tamsin Mather MAE". ae-info.org.
  50. ↑ "Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture". Royal Society. Retrieved 6 September 2018.
  51. ↑ "UK National Commission for UNESCO - 2008 UK and Ireland Fellows". UK National Commission for UNESCO. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
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