Professor Paula Koelemeijer, a former Junior Research Fellow at Univ (2015-2018) who is now a Tutorial Fellow at Exeter College, has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Royal Astronomical Society’s Fowler Award for Geophysics for early career achievement.

The Fowler Award is awarded annually to individuals who have made a particularly noteworthy contribution to geophysics or astronomy at an early stage of their research career.

Professor Koelemeijer received the award in recognition of her research on Earth’s deep interior. She has used seismic data to reveal processes far beneath Earth’s surface and her contributions have significantly advanced the understanding of the structure and dynamics of the lower mantle, which is one of the planet’s most enigmatic regions and holds clues about both its formation and thermal evolution.

Her diverse work draws on a range of seismology applications, including using seismic vibrations to study elephant populations in the wild, separating natural and anthropogenic sources of seismic noise during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, and employing global tomography to image deep Earth structure.

More recently, her research has shed light on the evolutionary history of two continent-sized structures in the deep mantle and revealed how a landslide triggered by climate change caused the Earth to vibrate for nine days.

Professor Koelemeijer said: “It is a real honour to receive the Fowler Award from the Royal Astronomical Society. I feel fortunate that my passion for unravelling signals hidden in seismic data is being recognised and I am proud to represent the geophysics community with this award. It is not just a reflection of my work, but also acknowledges a large group of people I have had the pleasure of working with.”

Published: 24 March 2026

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