Kaushik Dayal is the Walter Blenko Sr. Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  Dayal’s research interests are in the area of theoretical and computational multiscale mechanics applied to materials science, particularly in the context of nonequilibrium, multifunctional, and nonlocal behavior. He received a B.Tech. at the Indian Institute of Technology in 2000; an M.S. and Ph.D. from Caltech in 2007; and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Minnesota from 2006 to 2007. He has held visiting positions at DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory, DOD Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Universities of Bath and Bonn. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Applied Mechanics and Mathematics and Mechanics of Solids.

Jennifer Jackson is the William E. Leonhard Professor of Mineral Physics in the Seismological Laboratory, within the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where her work focuses on minerals in the deep Earth and planetary interiors. She also serves as Vice Provost for Research at Caltech. She received her Master’s degree at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana in 2000 and her Ph.D. degree in Geology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. Her Ph.D. was followed by positions as Visiting Scientist at the Advanced Photon Source of Argonne National Laboratory and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.

In 2007, she joined the faculty at Caltech. Her research vision incorporates the role of minerals in shaping the variety of processes inside Earth, from the deepest parts of the metallic core to volcanic systems near the surface. She develops and applies unique experiments to materials under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature using diamond-anvil pressure vessels, infrared lasers, and x-ray scattering techniques. While fostering interdisciplinary collaborations with colleagues at Caltech, JPL and the greater scientific community, she mentors students and postdoctoral scholars, and has recently expanded her research purview beyond Earth. Working with colleagues at JPL and around the world, she is developing unconventional geophysical techniques that involve infrasound detection of seismicity from aerial-platforms (balloons) to study the interiors of other planetary bodies, such as Venus. Professor Jackson is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America.

Anton Van der Ven bio.