Cailey Condit, a UW Assistant Professor and petrologist in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences was recently awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the most prestigious award presented by NSF to support junior faculty.
Condit has exciting plans for her award, titled “CAREER: Connecting metamorphic reactions, fluid production, and deep slow slip in subduction zones”.
Tell us about your research and what questions you’ve been exploring lately.
I am really passionate about looking at the exhumed rock record of ancient fault zones to understand what might be happening today in active zones like the Cascadia Fault off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I like to combine investigations of mechanical and chemical processes and the feedbacks amongst them to get a holistic picture of behavior of metamorphic rocks during deformation. For the past few years I have been thinking about the role of chemical reactions and related fluid release in producing slow or fast earthquakes. I love that this work combines field work, lab work, theory, and modeling together.
How do you plan to spend your award?
The award will fund research aiming to answer the question “do metamorphic dehydration reactions produce slow earthquakes during subduction?”. It’s going to provide support for two PhD students to work with me, and a postdoctoral scholar. It’s also going to support a set of novel diffusion experiments in collaboration with Dr. Hannah Shamloo at CWU to develop a new diffusion chronometry tool in the mineral epidote, a product of these dehydration reactions, to constrain the duration of these reactions. It will also support curriculum development for ESS’s Rockin’ Out K-12 educational outreach program specifically aimed at increasing subduction zone hazard literacy in the Washington area. We live in the Cascadia Subduction zone, with all the earthquake, volcanic, and landslide hazards that come with it, yet the public awareness of these hazards still remains pretty low. Excitingly, the award will also support three years of an undergraduate summer research program called RESESS Satellite which will provide intensive research experiences and longitudinal mentorship for ~18 students.
What makes the NSF CAREER Award stand out, and what will it enable you to do?
This award will provide five years of sustained support for my research program, which is really exciting. Of course it’s a prestigious program, but more than that, the consistency of research support will allow me and my research group to really dig into the links between metamorphic reactions and earthquakes. I am also really passionate about outreach, increasing equity and accessibility in the geosciences, and undergraduate mentorship, so the Education Plan that is a part of the award criteria feeds directly into those passions, but also comes with resources to accomplish those projects.
How does it feel to receive this award?
It feels really rewarding. I’ve been thinking about and planning this proposal for several years, and wrote most of it while I was pregnant in the first trimester with my now infant daughter. It’s really fun to think about how I wrote this proposal with her, and we were a team together during that time. It feels extra special to somehow share it with her.