American geologist
Catherine Ann McCammon is a Canadian geoscientist who is employed by the University of Bayreuth. Her research focuses on surface and mantle processes, as well as the physics and chemistry of minerals. She is a Fellow of the European Association of Geochemistry and American Geophysical Union. In 2013, she was awarded the European Geosciences Union Robert Wilhelm Bunsen medal. She is the editor of the journal Physics and Chemistry of Minerals.
Early life and education
McCammon attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for her undergraduate studies, where she majored in physics. She joined the American Geophysical Union as a member in 1978.[1] She earned her doctorate at the Australian National University, where she studied the behaviour of iron oxides and sulphides.[2] McCammon was a postdoctoral fellow with Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) at the University of Manitoba.[3]
Research and career
In 1985, McCammon moved to the University of British Columbia, first as a postdoctoral scholar and then as an assistant professor. She left Canada for the University of Bayreuth in 1990, where she was appointed to a permanent position in 1996. McCammon studies Earth materials using advanced spectroscopic techniques. In particular, McCammon makes use of X-ray emission, X-ray absorption and Mössbauer spectroscopy.[4] She developed the Mössbauer milliprobe, which allows measurements of the Mössbauer spectra of objects with diameters below 500 μm.[5] The milliprobe allows the characterisation of minerals in high-pressure environments as well as at various interfaces.[5]
McCammon has investigated the characteristics of iron in high-pressure materials, measuring their oxidation states and spin transitions. Better understanding of the oxidation states of iron in deep regions of Earth's interior not only allows for accurate modelling of the formation of the core, but also provides insight into the planet's geochemical evolution.[4] High pressure experimentation has helped McCammon to understand the cycling of oxygen on planet Earth and the effect of iron on mantle discontinuities and the conductivity of minerals.[4] She is the editor of the journal Physics and Chemistry of Minerals.[6]
