David Andrew BarryResearch InterestsSubsurface hydrology, constructed wetlands, ecological engineering, in particular contaminant transport and remediation of soil and groundwater; more generally, models of hydrological and vadose zone processes; application of mathematical methods to hydrological processes; coastal zone sediment transport, aquifer-coastal ocean interactions; hydrodynamics and modelling of lakes.
Anders MeibomAnders Meibom obtained his PhD in physics from the University of Southern Denmark in 1997. This was followed by two and a half years of PostDoc work at the Hawaii Institute for Geophysics and Planetology, where he conducted mineralogical studies of primitive chondritic meteorites. From 2000 to 2005, he was Research Associate in the Geological & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University, where he represented Stanford in the USGS-Stanford ion microprobe laboratory. In 2005, he became proifessor at the Muséum National dHistoire Naturelle in Paris. From 2006 to 2011 he was the director of the French national NanoSIMS laboratory. Since January 2012, he is professor at the EPFL in the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC). From April 2014, he is professor ad personam at the Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne.
Philippe GilletPhilippe GILLET completed his undergraduate studies in Earth Science at Ecole normale supérieure de la rue dUlm (Paris). In 1983 he obtained a PhD in Geophysics at Université de Paris VII and joined Université de Rennes I as an assistant. Having obtained a State Doctorate in 1988, he became a Professor at this same university, which he left in 1992 to join Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon.
The first part of his research career was devoted to the formation of mountain ranges particularly of the Alps. In parallel, he developed experimental techniques (diamond anvil cells) to recreate the pressure and temperature prevailing deep inside planets in the lab. These experiments aim at understanding what materials make up the unreachable depths of planets in the solar system.
In 1997, Gillet started investigating extraterrestrial matter. He was involved in describing meteorites coming from Mars, the moon or planets which have disappeared today and explaining how these were expelled from their original plant by enormous shocks which propelled them to Earth. He also participated in the NASA Stardust program and contributed to identify comet grains collected from the tail of Comet Wild 2 and brought back to Earth. These grains represent the initial minerals in our solar system and were formed over 4.5 billion years ago. He has also worked on the following subjects:
Interactions between bacteria and minerals.
Solid to glass transition under pressure.
Experimental techniques: laser-heated diamond anvil cell, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction with synchrotron facilities, electron microscopy.
Philippe Gillet is also active in science and education management. He was the Director of the CNRS Institut National des Sciences de lUnivers (France), the President of the French synchrotron facility SOLEIL and of the French National Research Agency (2007), and the Director of Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon. Before joining EPFL he was the Chief of Staff of the French Minister of Higher Education and Research.
Selected publications:
Ferroir, T., L. Dubrovinsky, A. El Goresy, A. Simionovici, T. Nakamura, and P. Gillet (2010), Carbon polymorphism in shocked meteorites: Evidence for new natural ultrahard phases, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 290(1-2), 150-154.
Barrat J.A., Bohn M., Gillet Ph., Yamaguchi A. (2009) Evidence for K-rich terranes on Vesta from impact spherules. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 44, 359374.
Brownlee D, Tsou P, Aleon J, et al. (2006) Comet 81P/Wild 2 under a microscope. Science, 314, 1711-1716.
Beck P., Gillet Ph., El Goresy A., and Mostefaoui S. (2005) Timescales of shock processes in chondrites and Martian meteorites. Nature 435, 1071-1074.
Blase X., Gillet Ph., San Miguel A. and Mélinon P. (2004) Exceptional ideal strength of carbon clathrates. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 215505-215509.
Gillet Ph. (2002) Application of vibrational spectroscopy to geology. In Handbook of vibrational spectroscopy, Vol. 4 (ed. J. M. Chalmers and P. R. Griffiths), pp. 1-23. John Wiley & Sons.
Gillet Ph., Chen C., Dubrovinsky L., and El Goresy A. (2000) Natural NaAlSi3O8 -hollandite in the shocked Sixiangkou meteorite. Science 287, 1633-1636.
