Karen M. Fischer, professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, has been awarded the Harry Fielding Reid Medal by the Seismological Society of America.
The annual award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of seismology or earthquake engineering. Dr. Fischer was honored for her pioneering research on Earth’s upper mantle structure and dynamics, the structure and evolution of continental lithosphere, and the dynamics of subduction systems.
Dr. Fischer has been a faculty member of Brown’s faculty since the fall of 1990. In 2004, she because the first physical scientist at Brown to receive the prestigious Royce Family Professorship, which recognizes excellence in teaching. She held the professorship until 2007. Before joining the Brown faculty, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.
Among her key leadership positions in the field, Dr. Fischer served multiple terms on the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology Board of Directors, most recently from 2016 to 2018. She also served as president of the Seismology Section of the American Geophysical Union from 2013 to 2014.
Dr. Fischer is a summa cum laude graduate of Yale University where she majored in geology and geophysics. She holds a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.