Roberta L. Rudnick

Roberta L. Rudnick is the Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California Santa Barbara. She holds a B.S. from Portland State University (1980), M.S. from Sul Ross State University (1983), and Ph.D. from The Australian National University (1988). Her career includes roles as Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute (1987-1989), Research Fellow at ANU (1989-1994), and professorships at Harvard University (1994-2000) and the University of Maryland (2000-2016). Her research integrates petrology and geochemistry with geophysics to study continental lithosphere composition, focusing on glacial diamictites and xenoliths to trace crustal evolution and surface processes.

Key research areas include continental crust formation, geochemical cycling, and the role of metamorphic processes. She leads the Continental Geochemistry Group, investigating topics like crustal heat production, lower crust composition, and halogen enrichment mechanisms. Her work is supported by prestigious fellowships from AGU, GSA, and membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Rudnick advises four graduate students and has authored over 150 publications, including landmark studies on crustal composition and isotope geochemistry. Her recent work emphasizes the use of diamictites to track Earth’s atmospheric and crustal evolution over billions of years.