Dr Grace Shephard

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About
I am a interested in what the Earth looked like millions of years ago, including the past configurations of the continents and oceans, and the structure of deep convecting interior. To do this I build digital Earth models that piece together information from geology, geophysics and geochemistry. The timescales involved in these models covers "deep time" i.e. from present-day to hundreds of millions of years in the past. These models allows us better understand processes including climate, volcanism, and the development of minerals.
I received my PhD from the University of Sydney (EarthByte Group) and then moved to Norway. I have worked as a postdoc and researcher at two Norwegian Centres of Excellence - the Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED; 2013-2023) and the Centre for Planetary Habitability (PHAB; 2023-2033).
I am currently funded on a Young Researcher Talent Grant from the Norwegian Research Council for my project "POLARIS - Evolution of the Arctic in deep time." I am concurrently an Honorary Senior Lecturer at RSES (2023-current) hosted within the Geophysics-Geodynamics groups.
In 2026 I will commence a my Australian Research Council Future Fellowship with a project titled "AUSTRALIS - Deep time evolution of mineral systems in the Tasmanides."
Full list of publications on Google Scholar
Affiliations
- Geophysics, Member
Research interests
- Plate tectonic reconstructions, including the polar and circum-Pacific regions
- Palaeogeography, including the interplay of tectonics with oceans and climate
- Mantle structure and evolution, including the history of subduction and large-scale volcanism
- GPlates software
Also interested in science communication, data visualization, and EDI initiatives:
- Use of scientific colours (#UseBatlow)
https://zenodo.org/record/8035877 - Encouraging children and youth into STEM
Curious Minds and STEMPals - Open data and figure sharing
https://s-ink.org/ - WOMEESA (Women in Earth. and Env.) Committee and ACT rep
https://www.womeesa.net/ - Geodynamica Diamond Open Access- Technical team
https://geodynamica.univ-lyon1.fr/
Projects
- Tasmanide Geodynamics and Mineral Systems, Principal investigator
Location
J2.G50