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Iris van Zelst

Iris is a Patience Cowie research fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Her current research revolves around modelling the geodynamics and seismicity of Venus. Previous projects concerned subduction dynamics and the associated seismic and tsunami hazards. Iris is the former Editor-in-chief of the GD blog team and now sometimes just blogs for fun. You can reach Iris via email. For more details, please visit Iris' personal webpage or check out her youtube channel: youtube.com/irisvanzelst.

Iris van Zelst – GD Outstanding ECS Award 2025

Iris van Zelst – GD Outstanding ECS Award 2025

The 2025 Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award of the Geodynamics Division was awarded to Iris van Zelst in recognition of her outstanding ability to connect research fields including earthquake dynamics, planetary sciences and geodynamics, along with her profound engagement with science outreach and promotion of diverse and inclusive working enviroments. In this interview, Iris -also former EG ...[Read More]

Notice! – Your public data has been collected to study the diversity of the geodynamics community over time

Dear Geodynamics community, This is your trusted former Editor-in-Chief speaking. I have an important announcement! In very exciting news, the team behind the 101 Geodynamic modelling paper (which I am sure you have read and loved, right? No? Well, what are you waiting for?! Check it out here!) has reunited to write another very relevant paper tailored to the geodynamics community. You’re we ...[Read More]

How we made QUARTETnary – the card game about the geological time scale

How we made QUARTETnary – the card game about the geological time scale

QUARTETnary is an educational card game about the geological time scale. Consisting of 60 beautifully illustrated cards, QUARTETnary explores the events in Earth’s history: from dinosaurs to humans and from the formation of the Alps to the formation of the Himalayas. It was designed by Iris van Zelst (me! Your fabulous former Editor-in-Chief), and illustrated by Lucia Perez-Diaz (also a former edi ...[Read More]

Science Sisters Season 2 is out now!

Science Sisters Season 2 is out now!

Science Sisters is a lighthearted interview series where Iris van Zelst (postdoc at the German Aerospace Center) chats with lots of different people (with a focus on – but not limited to – women in science) to make some sense of the academic world. Filled with laughter and silliness, it explores different career paths, academic life, soft skills, and current issues in academia. At 15 t ...[Read More]

Goodbye to 6 years of blogging

Goodbye to 6 years of blogging

Dearest reader, on this day, six years ago, we published our very first blog post, stating our geodynamission: our plans for this new geodynamics division blog. From that day onwards, I have had the absolute privilege of being your Editor-in-Chief. But all good things must end and so does my term of being the Editor-in-Chief. Before I say my final goodbyes, let’s take a trip down memory lane ...[Read More]

Happy blog birthday!

Happy blog birthday!

The EGU Geodynamics blog is 5 years old today! *throws confetti* Imagine being on the same contract in the same country for that long… Wow. Truly incredible. So let’s have a look at what we did over this past year of blogging. What did we do? Write and edit, mainly. I know – who’d’ve thought that is what editors do, right? But yes, writing and editing was done in abun ...[Read More]

Introducing the new blog team!

Introducing the new blog team!

It’s that time of year again! Another EGU General Assembly has passed. Another EGU Geodynamics blog team has been assembled! Now with a blog team bigger than ever! Whoohoo! So let me introduce you to the amazing blog team of 2022-2023 who will start blogging in earnest from next week onwards. If you are interested in joining yourself or want to reach out to anyone from the blog team, don&#82 ...[Read More]

Join the EGU GD Blog Team!

Join the EGU GD Blog Team!

We are looking for new blog team members for the new ‘EGU year’ (June 2022 – June 2023)! By being part of the blog team, you will have the opportunity to meet lots of people from the geodynamics community and beyond and boost your own profile. This year, we are looking for many different kinds of contributions, so have a look below and see if anything sparks your interest! Intere ...[Read More]

Catching up with Iris van Zelst on everything outreach, science communication, and vlogging

Catching up with Iris van Zelst on everything outreach, science communication, and vlogging

Following from last week’s post on the Science Sisters series, this week we sit with outreach extraordinaire and EGU GD blog editor-in-chief Iris van Zelst to talk about all things scicom, vlogging and a new geological time game that you do not want to miss out on! Hi Iris, thanks for chatting with us! First things first tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do!  Thank you very much for ...[Read More]