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Professor Caroline Beghein is an associate professor in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, at the University of California Los Angeles (U.S.). Her areas of research include global and regional tomography with an emphasis on mantle anisotropy. Her research efforts have been aimed at creating 3-D models of the lateral variations in seismic wave velocity and in seismic anisotropy. Besides teaching and research, Professor Beghein is the mother of two children.

1.Early Life:

Professor Beghein was born in Belgium in 1975. She was raised by her father and mother and has a younger sister. Her father taught chemistry in high school and her grandmother held a great interest in planetary sciences and astronomy. Both would be influential on the young Professor Beghein’s decision to pursue the sciences.  

1.1  High School Education

Middle and high schools in Belgium are divided into two styles of schools: a trade high school and an academic high school. It was a requirement of Belgian Universities that applicants have had completed the degree requirements of an academic high school. Professor Beghein initially enrolled in an academic middle school in a scientific track but had strong interest in learning English as well and thought she would end up choosing languages as her emphasis. However, upon completing and excelling in the school’s scientific placement testing, she was advised to adopt math and sciences as her focus and so she did.

2. Collegiate Education: Geoscience Applications

In 1997, Professor Beghein graduated with High Honors from the University de Liège, Belgium and received her Bachelors of science in physics. In 1998, Professor Beghein earned a Masters in Solid Earth Geophysics at the Institute de Physique du Globe in Paris France. Professor Beghein knew from her experiences in undergrad that she preferred mathematical and computational modeling to laboratory work. Consequently, she chose to do a Master’s research project in geodynamics. Upon completion of her Masters, Professor Beghein’s project advisor offered Professor Beghein the opportunity to continue their research in geodynamics at a university in Canada where he would be returning to the following year.  At that time, Professor Beghein also had the opportunity to pursue her PhD in seismology at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands. Beghein knew she wanted to study modeling of the deep earth and that she wanted to stay in Europe to earn her PhD. At Utrecht, she worked as a research assistant to her project advisor Dr. Jeannot Trampert. His instruction largely shaped the way Professor Beghein would do and think about science. In 2003, Professor Beghein graduated with Cum Laude and received her PhD in seismology. 

From 2004 to 2005, Professor Beghein performed her post-doctorate research in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Space Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (MIT).  Her post-doc advisor was Dr. Rob van der Hilst. From 2006-2007, Professor Beghein continued her post-doctoral research in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ where her advisor was Dr. Matthew Fouch.

3. Employment:

In 2008, Professor Beghein became an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences (EPSS) at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). From February 2014 to March 2014, Beghein worked as a Visiting Investigator in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C.  In July of 2015, Professor Beghein was awarded tenure at UCLA where she continues to teach as an Associate Professor for the department of EPSS. In Winter and Spring of 2017 Professor Beghein worked as a visiting scientist in the Department of Earth Science at Rice University, Houston, Texas.

4. Research:

During her collegiate career, Professor Beghein developed an interest in understanding how oceans and continents form, in how the Earth’s mantle convects, and the structure of Earth’s inner core, and she continues to work on these topics. One of the main challenges that motivate her research is the difficulty to resolve Earth structure as depth increases and her research focuses on trying to improve constraints on mid and deep mantle structure .Another one of her interests regards inverse problems: many different models of Earth’s structure can explain the same dataset and obtaining all possible solutions to a given problem as well as reliable model uncertainties remains at the center of her research.  

Currently, Professor Beghein’s main research interests concern the modeling of the deep mantle. Her research efforts are aimed at using seismological tomography to obtain models that map in which direction seismic waves move faster or slower, where and at what depths, i.e. three-dimensional models of seismic anisotropy.  More generally, her research efforts in seismic anisotropy aim to increase understanding of the Earth’s tectonic plates and how it relates to deep Earth deformation.

5. Honors and Awards:

In 2005 Professor Beghein was awarded the EGU Arne Richter Award for Outstanding scientist for her work in advancing methods used in the understanding of anisotropy. In 2009, she was awarded the UCLA Faculty Career Development Award. In 2016 Professor Beghein was an IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lecturer. This title is awarded to those who are particularly skilled in providing a transparent, comprehendible discussion on topics in seismology such that the public can grasp them.

6. Publications:

Thus far, Professor Beghein has published many articles. These include papers in the prestigious Journal Science and 4 articles published by the Journal of Geophysical Research- Solid Earth: Radial anisotropy in seismic reference models of the mantle (February 2006), Radial anisotropy and prior petrological constraints: A comparative study (March 2010), Structure and anisotropy of the Mexico subduction zone based on Rayleigh-wave analysis and implications for the geometry of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (May 2012) and Three-dimensional variations in Love and Rayleigh wave azimuthal anisotropy for the upper 800 km of the mantle, (May 2014).

Beghein has also published several articles in the Geophysical Journal International and Earth and Planetary Science Letters, as well as other journals.  

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