Bio: Isabel Fendley is an assistant research professor in the Department of Geosciences at The Pennsylvania State University. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford 2020-2023, after completing her Ph.D. in earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
Her research has three main themes: 1) understanding the mechanisms (e.g., CO2 and other gas emissions) by which large igneous province (LIP) eruptions affect the environment and developing geochemical proxies to quantify these emissions through the geological record, such as mercury and sulfur concentration and isotopic composition; 2) using paleoenvironmental proxy records such as carbon and oxygen isotope records from the geological past to investigate the environmental response to volcanic eruptions and gas emissions; and 3) understanding gas emissions processes in modern volcanic systems and the environmental and climate effects of volcanic eruptions within the last few thousand years. Her work involves work on both sedimentary rocks as paleoenvironmental archives and igneous rocks which are products of the LIPs and other volcanoes.