HPSTAR staff scientist Dr. Yanhao Lin, is a recipient of the 2024 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists. This award is given annually to four early career geoscientists worldwide to recognize outstanding scientific achievements in any field of the geosciences by European Geosciences Union (EGU).
Dr. Lin's research is in the field of Planetary Science and Deep Earth Science. His current work focuses on exploring the effects of volatiles on the interiors of planets, the deep water cycle in the Earth, and the geophysical properties of planet's interior. His recent work of oxygen fugacity affecting rocky exoplanets, provides the first experimental evidence for a significant effect of planetary oxygen abundance on melting of rocks, showing that higher rock oxygen abundance leads to easier rock melting. This suggests that the extent and vigor of magmatism differ greatly between low-oxygen and high-oxygen exoplanets, opening an avenue to couple future observations of exoplanet atmospheres to interior compositions that cannot be directly observed. Dr. Lin's most recent work on stishovite quantified the water storage capacity in the transition zone, shallow lower mantle, and the base of the mantle for the first time. Their study shows that stishovite / post-stishovites as major minerals in deep mantle can host significant amounts of H2O even at high mantle temperatures and provide a unique mechanism for transport and storage of water in the deepest mantle.
Congratulations Dr. Yanhao Lin!
"Arne Richter Award for outstanding early career scientists is equivalent to a worldwide outstanding award from the European Earth Science Community. This award is bestowed to a total of four young geoscientists worldwide each year and each geoscience field gets only one in every few years” remarked Dr. Mao, the founding director of HPSTAR.
The Arne Richter Awards for Outstanding Early Career Scientists (formerly Outstanding Young Scientist Awards) recognizes scientific achievements in any field of the geosciences made by an Early Career Scientist. In 2011 the EGU Council renamed these awards in honor of Arne Richter, a former Executive Secretary of the EGU, for his continual efforts to promote Early Career Scientists.
The Arne Richter awardees are selected from among the Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award winners, whose names are forwarded to the Chair of the Union’s Awards Committee. The Council then selects four candidates whose honors are awarded as the Union-level Arne Richter Awards for Outstanding Early Career Scientists.
