Paolo Sossi, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
2021 Houtermans Award medallist
Paolo Sossi is a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow, based at the ETH Zürich since 2019 in the group of Prof. Max Schmidt. He holds both Italian and Australian citizenship, with his formative years spent in Adelaide, Australia, under the scientific tutelage of Prof. John Foden and Prof. Galen Halverson on the application of non-traditional stable isotopes to igneous systems. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2015 from the Australian National University under the supervision of Prof. Hugh O’Neill, combining high temperature experiments to calibrate isotopic fractionations observed in nature. From 2015 to 2018 he held an ERC post-doctoral position at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, where he was engaged with Prof. Frédéric Moynier on the cosmochemical applications of isotopic and elemental variations among meteorites.
Paolo’s research interests broadly lie in how the high temperature physico-chemical properties (structure, oxidation, geochemistry) of melts, minerals and vapours shape the composition and architecture of the terrestrial planets. To do so, he employs laboratory experiments to mirror geochemical processes, whose products are analysed by a combination of spectroscopic and mass spectrometric techniques in order to derive thermodynamic quantities and physical formalisms.
His early work focused on characterising the direction and magnitude of iron isotopic fractionation in igneous systems through analysis of mafic and ultramafic rocks and experimental analogues. He subsequently became interested in other isotopic systems (V, Cr and Zn) and exploited their differing geochemical properties to understand irradiative processes in the early solar system, conditions of the Moon-forming impact, and the delivery of moderately volatile elements to Earth. More recently, Paolo has been involved in determining the solution properties and vapour species of moderately- and highly volatile elements, the redox evolution of Earth’s mantle and the mechanisms for the production and loss of atmospheres around rocky bodies.
Additional information and a list of publications can be found here.