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Rebecca Fischer

Rebecca Fischer received her B.A. from Northwestern University in 2009, double-majoring in Earth and Planetary Sciences and Integrated Science. While an undergraduate at NU, Rebecca did high pressure experiments in Steve Jacobsen's laboratory. Rebecca earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2015, with a thesis entitled "Earth's accretion, core formation, and core composition". She then had an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to work at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the University of California Santa Cruz. In 2017, Rebecca began a faculty position at Harvard University, where she is currently the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Rebecca's research interests span mineral physics and planetary science. They include Earth's modern-day core and mantle compositions and mineralogy, the process of core–mantle differentiation on Earth and other terrestrial planets, and terrestrial planet accretion. She performs high-pressure, high-temperature experiments using a laser-heated diamond anvil cell to recreate conditions of Earth's lower mantle and core in the laboratory, and also performs numerical simulations. For example, she has studied the phase diagrams and equations of state of iron-rich alloys (candidate core materials) and silica, metal–silicate reactions at extreme conditions, and dynamics of terrestrial planet accretion in our Solar System.