Elena Melekhova

Elena Melekhova is a Senior Research Fellow in Experimental Petrology at the University of Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences. Her research focuses on magmatic processes at convergent margins, particularly subduction zones, integrating experimental petrology with field observations, geophysics, and numerical modeling. She investigates crust formation in volcanic arcs and ore-forming processes in layered intrusions.

Her recent fieldwork includes studies on La Soufrière volcano (St Vincent) with collaborators from Cardiff University and the University of West Indies, analyzing lavas and xenoliths to understand magma evolution and sulfur budgets. She advises PhD students such as Beitris Morrison Evans (Oxford) and collaborates on projects like the 2024 St Vincent field expedition.

Teaching contributions include covering undergraduate courses during colleagues' sabbaticals, and she oversees DPhil student applications through the Oxford Training Programme. Her work bridges experimental and field-based approaches to address fundamental questions in igneous petrology and planetary evolution.