Robert Liebermann
Research Professor, May 2014 to Present / Distinguished Service Professor, May 1996 to May 2014
Mineral Physics Institute
Office: ESS 167
B.S., California Institute of Technology, 1964
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1969
Senior Research Fellow, Australian National University, 1970-76
Faculty Member at Stony Brook May 1976 to May 2014
President of COMPRES (September 2003 to January 2010)
Visiting Professor, Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, 1983-84; Visiting Professor, University of Tokyo, 1984; Visiting Professor, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, 1990; Visiting Professor, Australian National University, Canberra, 1991-1992; Visiting Professor, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France, 2002-2003
Professor Liebermann's research interests are in the field of mineral physics, which
is dedicated to understanding how the physical and chemical properties of minerals
and rocks control their geological behavior, especially at high pressures and temperatures.
Liebermann is also a founding member of the Committee on Mineral and Rock Physics
and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Mineralogical Society of America.
In April 2004, he received the degree of Docteur Honoris Causa from the Université
Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France.
From September 2003 to January 2010, Liebermann served as President of the Consortium
for Materials Properties Research in Earth Sciences [COMPRES]. The headquarters of
COMPRES are in the Mineral Physics Institute of Stony Brook University.
Liebermann received the Edward A. Flinn Award from the American Geophysical Union
in 2012 for facilitating international collaborations, enabling the development of
new community facilities for mineral physics research, and implementing activities
to support and promote the entire mineral physics community as President of COMPRES.
In 2014, a research team from the California Institute of Technology and the University
of Nevada at Las Vegas discovered a new hollandite phase of KAlSi3O8 in the Zagami
meteorite from Mars and named it “liebermannite” for his fundamental contributions
to high-pressure mineral physics research.
Selected Publications [2007-2019]
Li, B., and R. C. Liebermann, Indoor seismology by probing the Earth’s interior by using sound velocity measurements at high pressures and temperatures, Proc. National Acad. Sci., 104, 9145-9150, 2007.
Liebermann, R. C., and C. T. Prewitt, From Airlie House in 1977 to Lake Morey in 2007: 30 Years of evolution of mineral physics, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 228, 36-45, 2014.
Liebermann, R. C., The Role of Serendipity in My Career in Mineral Physics: 1968 to 2013, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 307-323, 2014.
Li, B., and R. C., Liebermann, Study of the Earth's interior using measurements of sound velocities in minerals by ultrasonic interferometry, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 135-153. 2014.
Liebermann, R. C., The Role of Serendipity in My Career in Mineral Physics: 1968 to 2013, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 307-323, 2014.
Li, B., and R. C., Liebermann, Study of the Earth's interior using measurements of sound velocities in minerals by ultrasonic interferometry, Phys. Earth Planet. Interiors, 233, 135-153. 2014.
Liebermann, R. C., L. Ehm and G.D. Gwanmesia, Creating career paths for African-American students in Geosciences, EOS, Earth and Space Sciences News, vol. 97, issue 13, pp. 9-11, 1 July 2016.
Liebermann, R. C., My Career as a Mineral Physicist at Stony Brook: 1976-2019, Minerals, Special Issue, Mineral physics: In memory of Orson Anderson, published online 7 December 2019, 9(2), 761, 2019.