Ross John Angel (born October 26, 1959) is a researcher in

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

, expert in crystallography and elastic properties of geological materials and key industrial materials, which he studies with experimental and analytical approaches. He is the lead author or co-author of over 240 articles in international scientific journals, he received the

Dana Medal The Dana Medal, established in 1998, is awarded by the Mineralogical Society of America and is named in honor of the contributions made by James Dwight Dana (1813–1895) and Edward Salisbury Dana (1849–1935) to the science of mineralogy. It reco ...

from the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

in 2011 and is currently a director of research at the Institute of Geosciences and Geo-resources of the

National Research Council (Italy) The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome. ...

Education

Angel was educated at the

Trinity School of John Whitgift The Trinity School of John Whitgift, also known as Trinity School, is a independent boys' day school with a co-educational sixth form, located in Shirley Park, Croydon. Part of the Whitgift Foundation, it was established in 1882 as Whitgift ...

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

and then at

Clare College, Cambridge Clare College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college was founded in 1326 as University Hall, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the Unive ...

in the University of Cambridge. He obtained his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in Mineral Sciences in 1982, and his

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1986, all from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Career

Angel won a NATO Overseas Research Fellowship and joined Prof. Charles Prewitt's group at the

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

in 1985 to develop new analysis methods to determine the crystal structures of incommensurate minerals. When Prewitt was appointed director of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, now known as

Carnegie Institution for Science The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization established to fund and perform scientific research in the United States. This institution is headquartered in W ...

, Angel moved with him. At the Geophysical Laboratory staff members

Robert Hazen Robert Miller Hazen (born November 1, 1948) is an American mineralogist and astrobiologist. He is a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory and Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science at George ...

and Larry Finger trained him in high-pressure crystallography. Angel was part of the team that determined the crystal structures of the first high-temperature super-conductors in 1987, In 1988 Angel won a 1983 University Research Fellowship from the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

to work at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

under the direction of David Price (British academic), and in 1994 was appointed to the staff at the Bayerisches Geoinstitut, directed by Friedrich Seifert, at the

University of Bayreuth The University of Bayreuth (German: Universität Bayreuth) is a public research university located in Bayreuth, Germany. It is one of the youngest German universities. It is broadly organized into seven undergraduate and graduate faculties, with ...

, in

Bayreuth Bayreuth ( or ; High Franconian German, Upper Franconian: Bareid, ) is a Town#Germany, town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 11 ...

, Germany. In 2001 he was appointed research professor in crystallography at

Virginia Tech The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

in the US and with Nancy L. Ross founded the Virginia Tech Crystallography Laboratory which performs X-ray diffraction measurements in support of research programs in chemistry, geosciences, physics, and biological sciences, In 2011, Angel held a Mercator Professorship of the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

at the Mineralogisch-Petrographisches Institut of the

University of Hamburg The University of Hamburg (, also referred to as UHH) is a public university, public research university in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded on 28 March 1919 by combining the previous General Lecture System ('':de:Allgemeines Vorlesungswesen, ...

in Germany and then moved to Italy to work in the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Padova (2011–2017). After two years on the faculty at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of the

University of Pavia The University of Pavia (, UNIPV or ''Università di Pavia''; ) is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest un ...

, in 2019 he joined the Institute of Geosciences and Geo-resources of the

Padova Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of ...

, Italy where he is now a director of research.

Current research

Angel has developed and established novel methods for single-crystal diffraction, at extreme conditions in order to characterize and understand the fundamental relationships between the atomic-scale structures and properties of materials. The software that he has developed for controlling single-crystal X-ray diffractometers, and processing of data is distributed as

freeware Freeware is software, often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the free ...

and is in use by many research groups world-wide. With colleagues he is developing elasticity theory and methods to measure the stress and strain of inclusions inside host minerals in order to determine the pressures and temperatures at which they were trapped deep inside the Earth.

Honors

Angel has been the recipient of major honors at both national and international levels. United-Kingdom: Angel received the Phillips Crystallography Award of the British Crystallographic Association in 1991 and in 1993 the first Max Hey Award of the

Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland The Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland (now known as the Mineralogical Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland) was founded in 1876. Its main purpose is to disseminate scientific knowledge of the Mineral Sciences (mineralogy) as ...

. International: Angel has been a fellow of the

since 1991. He received the Medal for Research Excellence of the European Mineralogical Union (1998). More recently, he received the

from the

in 2011 Angel is also involved in the mineralogy community by serving as: *Councilor of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) (2021–present) *Technical editor for crystal structures, ''

American Mineralogist ''American Mineralogist: An International Journal of Earth and Planetary Materials'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering the general fields of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology. It is an official journal of the Mi ...

'' (2013–2021) *Member of the Editorial Advisory board of '' Physics and Chemistry of Minerals'' (2020–present) *Member of the Editorial Advisory board of ''

Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials ''Zeitschrift für Kristallographie – Crystalline Materials'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published in English. The journal publishes theoretical and experimental studies in crystallography of both organic and inorganic substanc ...

'' (2013–present) *Councilor of the

(2005–2007) *Associate editor of the ''European Journal of Mineralogy''

Publications

Selected notable scientific publications in international journals. *Angel RJ, Chopelas A, Ross NL (1992) Stability of high-density clinoenstatite at upper-mantle pressures. ''Nature'' 358:322-324. *Angel RJ, Allan DR, Miletich R, Finger LW (1997) The use of quartz as an internal pressure standard in high-pressure crystallography. ''Journal of Applied Crystallography'' 30:461-466. *Angel RJ (2000) Equations of state. In RM Hazen and RT Downs (eds.), High-pressure and high-temperature crystal chemistry. ''Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry'', 41:35-60. *Angel RJ, Bujak M, Zhao J, Gatta GD, Jacobsen SD (2007) Effective hydrostatic limits of pressure media for high-pressure crystallographic studies. ''Journal of Applied Crystallography'' 40:26-32. *Angel RJ, Gonzalez-Platas J, Alvaro M (2014) EosFit-7c and a Fortran module (library) for equation of state calculations. ''Zeitschrift für Kristallographie'', 229, 405–419.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Angel, Ross John 1959 births Living people English mineralogists British crystallographers Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of Cambridge People from Croydon Fellows of the Mineralogical Society of America