Hagit Affek recently joined the Yale Geology & Geophysics faculty as an Assistant Professor in July of 2007. Her research interests are within the field of environmental geochemistry focusing on biosphere-atmosphere interactions and global climate change. Her B.A. in chemistry was obtained from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. Her M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees were both obtained in the department on Environmental Sciences and Energy Research in the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. Her M.Sc. research (in the labs of Dan Yakir and Daniel Ronen) dealt with CO2 fluxes at the saturated - unsaturated interface of a phreatic aquifer. Her Ph.D. research (in the lab of Dan Yakir) dealt with Isoprene emission from plants: physiological role and isotopic composition. Her post-doctoral work (in the lab of John Eiler), in the division of Geological and Planetary Sciences in Caltech, dealt with developing a new isotopic tracer, mass 47 of CO2, to be used both as a traced for atmospheric CO2 fluxes and as a temperature proxy in carbonate minerals. Dr. Affek's research interests progress in two parallel directions: 1. She studies production and emission of volatile organic molecules from plants and how plants affect air quality. This includes hydrocarbons of the isoprenoid family that are emitted in large amounts from vegetation, and contribute, in the presence of NOx (which is mostly of anthropogenic origin) and sunlight, to production of tropospheric ozone and therefore play a role in air pollution formation. Her past work showed that isoprene could protect plants from oxidative stress. It also showed, using carbon isotopic analyses, that, contrary to the common assumption, not all the isoprene is produced from fresh fixed carbon but some is produced from stored carbon, allowing isoprene production under stress conditions when photosynthesis declines. She plans to expand her isotopic research of molecules of this family. She also plans to study emission of alkyl halides from plants. These molecules are important natural sources of chlorine and bromine atoms to the stratosphere, where they contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion. 2. Dr. Affek is also involved in developing a new isotopic tracer, termed the 'clumped isotope' effect or mass 47 anomaly. Her work in atmospheric CO2 showed that the mass 47 anomaly signature in some of important CO2 fluxes does not reflect the expected equilibrium values and therefore lead to seasonal variations in mass 47 anomaly in atmospheric CO2, making it a potentially useful tracer in studying CO2 fluxes. She plans to extend this work by studying the mass 47 anomaly values associated with the different CO2 fluxes. Clumped isotopes are also used as temperature proxies for climate reconstruction studies, using carbonate minerals. This tracer has a significant advantage over the more common oxygen isotopes; that is, it provides a pure temperature signal, independent of the isotopic value of the water in which the carbonate is formed. Dr. Affek's current work focuses on glacial-interglacial temperature variations recorded in speleothems. She plans to expand this work to using other carbonate sources and additional time periods. Zhengrong Wang recently joined the Yale Geology & Geophysics faculty in July of 2007 as an Assistant Professor. His PhD is from the California Institute of Technology and before coming to Yale he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. His principle research focus is to understand the nature and evolution of the earth's mantle, oceanic lithosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere, and their interaction over geologic time. Dr. Wang's basic approach is to use the principles of stable isotope fractionation, in conjunction with various analytical and experimental techniques. Traditional stable isotopes (e.g., C, H, O, S, and N) and non-traditional stable isotopes (e.g., Li, Mg, Fe, B and Ca) are significantly fractionated at a low temperature environment (e.g., oceanic environment and biosphere), whereas they are much less fractionated at elevated temperature (e.g., igneous system and mantle environment). Traditional stable isotope systems (e.g., O and C) have proven to be powerful complements to radiogenic isotope and trace element geochemistry in constraining the evolution of and interaction among Earth's major geochemical reservoirs. Non-traditional stable isotopes (e.g., Mg, B and Li), while more novel tools, are rapidly gaining attention, partially driven by advances in Multi-Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) instrumentation. These "new" stable isotopes have a variety of distinct geochemical properties that are advantageous over traditional isotope systems, and therefore offer promising new avenues for understanding mantle geochemistry, geochemical and biological fluxes and cycles, paleo-oceanography and paleoclimate changes. Following are a few research projects that Dr. Wang is working on right now: 1) Mg and oxygen isotope composition in various mantle reservoir in the earth, and constraints on mantle dynamics; 2) Mg isotope fractionation during biomineralization of carbonate and dolomitization; 3) Mg isotope variation in hydrothermal systems; 4) theoretical studies of isotope fractionation using quantum mechanics; 5) trace element partitioning between melt/fluid and minerals. Progress in these studies strongly relies on improved analytical facilities and advances in sampling and analytical technology. In the next few years, he will be building infrared laser fluorination equipment to study oxygen isotope composition of silicates, and a non-traditional stable isotope analytical center equipped with a state-of-the-art clean lab, MC-ICP-MS, and ICP-MS. Kanani K. M. Lee will be joining the Yale Geology & Geophysics faculty in July of 2008 as an Assistant Professor. She received her PhD in Geophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, after which she was a OK Earl Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology and then an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Bayreuth Geoinstitut in Germany. She is most recently an Assistant Professor in Physics at New Mexico State University. Dr. Lee investigates the interior of the Earth as well as other planetary interiors using a number of high-pressure techniques: laser-heated diamond anvil cell, laser-driven shock waves on precompressed samples and ab-initio quantum-mechanical computations. For her most recent research endeavor, she investigates the pressure and chemical dependence on the half-lives of electron-capture radioactive isotopes, including 40K and 26Al, two isotopes that are important in understanding the Earth's heat budget. This effort brings together state-of-the-art ab-initio computations of electron density with that of high-pressure diamond-anvil cell experiments. Experiments and computations are combined jointly to investigate how chemical composition and pressure affect the electron-capture portion of their half-lives. Furthermore, Dr. Lee also investigates the partitioning behavior of potassium within the Earth's mantle and between the mantle and core in hopes of better understanding this important heat source. Additionally Dr. Lee's research interests include investigating the physical properties of natural rock assemblages that are good estimates for the composition of the Earth's mantle. The Earth's mantle comprises ~85% of the Earth's volume thereby it's physical and chemical makeup are necessary to understanding the observations that are made on the surface of the Earth including earthquakes, volcanoes, geodetic measurements and so forth. Ironically, due to the nature of high-pressure experiments, in trying to understand the "big" picture of the Earth's accretion and evolution, her samples are tiny: individual grains as small as 10's of nanometers with total sample dimensions of ~100 micrometers. Because of their small size, she uses a number of techniques to probe the samples both while at high pressure and temperature (synchrotron-based x-ray diffraction) as well as upon quenching from extreme conditions (Scanning Electron Microscope, Electron-Probe MicroAnalysis and Focused Ion Beam). Dr. Lee's interests also extend beyond Earth's rocky and metallic interior to the outer reaches of the solar system and beyond. Together with colleagues at UC Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and France's Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, she found that water becomes metal-like under extremely high pressures and temperatures. Water, although ubiquitous on Earth as a vapor, liquid and solid, becomes reflecting under extreme conditions. Water's newly-discovered reflectivity indicates that water becomes electronically conducting and metal-like under the very high pressures and temperatures in the interior of a planet like Neptune or some of the extra-solar planets that have been recently discovered hinting at the possibility that conducting water is the source of these planets' magnetic field. Maureen D. Long will be joining the Yale Geology & Geophysics faculty in January of 2009 as an Assistant Professor. She earned her Ph.D. in Geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006 and subsequently joined the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, where she is a postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Long is an observational seismologist whose primary scientific interests lie in mantle anisotropy and deformation, subduction zone dynamics and processes, and the integration of seismology with mineral physics and geodynamics. In her research, Dr. Long brings a variety of tools to bear on the problems of how deformation is accommodated in the mantle and how constraints on mantle dynamics can be gleaned from seismological observations. This includes work on methodologies for measuring shear wave splitting (an indicator of seismic anisotropy) and the development of a method for shear wave splitting tomography to image anisotropy in the upper mantle. Much of her research on mantle anisotropy focuses on subduction zones, with the goal of characterizing the mantle flow field in regions associated with subduction. This work has led to models for subduction zone anisotropy on both regional scales (with a focus on complex anisotropy beneath Japan) and on a global scale. Another major focus of Dr. Long's research is the integration of seismological observations with constraints from other disciplines, such as geodynamics and mineral physics. In particular, she performs numerical modeling of mantle deformation associated with a downgoing slab; these models are compared with shear wave splitting observations and integrated into a framework for splitting tomography. In the mineral physics realm, her interests include laboratory studies of deformation and anisotropy in lower mantle minerals. These experimental results are used to place constraints on plausible models for anisotropy in the D" region, and to design seismological experiments to characterize better the cause of anisotropy in this region Dr. Long's current and future research projects include 1) further development and application of techniques for shear wave splitting tomography, 2) investigations of global interactions of subducting slabs with the mantle flow field, 3) array studies of mantle structure and deformation beneath recent volcanism in Oregon's High Lava Plains, 4) comparing numerical and laboratory models of subduction with observations, and 5) seismological investigations of anisotropy at the base of the mantle and interpretation using experimental constraints. More generally, her research plans incorporate further collaborations with geodynamicists and mineral physicists to integrate constraints from these disciplines with seismological observations. Dr. Long's research program includes a substantial field seismology component, which will be enhanced by a new observational seismology facility at Yale that will consist of ~ 20 broadband seismometers to be deployed in temporary arrays around the world, with a focus on subduction zone regions.