Carolina Raquel Lithgow-Bertelloni is a geophysicist known for her research on the role of subsurface processes in shaping the Earth.
[1] Following her Ph.D., Lithgow-Bertelloni held positions at Universität Göttingen, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Institution of Washington before becoming an assistant professor at the University of Michigan in 1997, where she remained until 2011.
In 2018, Lithgow-Bertelloni became the Louis B. and Martha B. Slichter Endowed Chair in Geosciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.
[3][4] She has examined processes that contribute to variability in plate motion including mineralogy in the subsurface[5][6] and chemical heterogeneity in the mantle.
[7] Her research has contributed to our understanding of the early history of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain[8] and the role of changes in viscosity in establishing a boundary in the mantle at one megameter below the Earth's surface.