Karen Ziegler

Bio

I am a Senior Research Scientist III in the Institute of Meteoritics and a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Following my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in 1989 (Sedimentary processes in backbarrier island settings) in my native Germany, I obtained my Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Reading (UK) in Sedimentary Stable Isotope Geochemistry (North Sea subsurface clastic water-rock interactions: δ¹⁸O, δ²H, δ³⁷Cl). I continued in this scientific area for a postdoc in the UK, and then another one in Canada (University of Western Ontario) where I applied a similar approach to subsurface alteration of igneous rocks along the major Precambrian-Cambrian unconformity in the Appalachian basin and SW Ontario. In 1999, I came to the US and worked at the University of California in Santa Barbara; my research focus there was the exploration of the systematics of silicon isotopes (δ³⁰Si) during progressive surface weathering of basaltic and granitic rocks (Hawai’i and Puerto Rico). When I started to work as a Project Scientist and Lab Manager at the University of California in Los Angeles in 2004, I was first exposed to the world of rocks from space – meteorites. During my time there, I applied Si isotopes to the differentiation of planetary bodies (core and mantle formation), both experimentally and in meteorites. I also measured the oxygen triple isotopic composition of meteorites in order to better understand the evolution of the solar system and the formation of asteroids and planetesimals. At UCLA I was also involved in the development of a system for ‘clumped’ isotopes of CO₂ and O₂. When the Institute of Meteoritics here at UNM advertised a job opening for a stable isotope meteoritisist in 2011, I took the opportunity to come to a place dedicated to meteorites, and have been here happily thereafter. I have since become the “go-to”-lab for oxygen triple isotope measurements in meteorites for scientists around the entire globe. Besides isotopes, mass spectrometers, science and meteorites, I love cooking, plants, cats and dogs, and I have even come to adore the beauty of Black Widows.