Scientist Spotlight: Evangelia Tripoliti

I’ve always been astonished by complex systems; their behaviour and predicted (in principle) unpredictability, and from a very young age I fantasized of a life in science investigating and exploring hypotheses. I started my studies in 2009 in statistics and math, only to realise a few months later that I needed something more tangible and in 2010 I switched to Earth Sciences. I’ve spent a few years alternating between physics and Earth Sciences and in 2014 I started my academic career as a seismologist at the National Observatory of Athens while I was doing research at the University of Athens on non-extensive statistical physics and seismology. In 2018 I finished my 2^nd MSc at UCL  and continued to a PhD in 2019.

My research now focuses on the study of upper mantle and transition zone materials such as olivines and majoritic garnets. My day-to-day work involves sample synthesis, high-temperature/pressure experiments, and data analysis. Once my samples are successfully synthesised at UCL’s Haskel Lab, I’m looking at their crystallography by means of powder X-ray diffraction at UCL, single-crystal X-ray diffraction at the Natural History Museum of London, as well as neutron diffraction and synchrotron at national and international radiation facilities. Data obtained from these experimental techniques allow me to calculate various thermodynamic and thermoelastic material properties which will then allow me to understand mantle behaviour.

Outside of academia I spend most of my time doing charcoal portraits and pyrography.