Susan Kieffer

Susan Elizabeth Werner Kieffer (November 17, 1942–) is an American physical geologist and planetary scientist. Kieffer is known for her work on the fluid dynamics of volcanoes, geysers, and rivers, and for her model of the thermodynamic properties of complex minerals. She has also contributed to the scientific understanding of meteorite impacts.

2021

 * I think the basic motivation for my research and publishing papers in the conventional media is curiosity.
 * The problem is that the attention span of humans as individuals is a year or two. If you have a disaster, you basically have a year or two to try to change human behavior, and then interest fades
 * One of the things I discovered in writing my book, The Dynamics of Disaster, was the thrill of learning about completely new things that my research would never ever have taken me into.
 * I think the only thing that has a broader range of scales than geology is astronomy. Geologists really look at things from the atomic scale to the solar system scale, and we potentially think about planets beyond the solar system.
 * Zierler, D (2021) Susan Kieffer (PhD '71), Geologist Caltech Heritage project interview.

2014

 * Our collective work in the geosciences has made, and must continue to make, a difference in how humans interact with our planet.
 * Kieffer, S (2014). 2014 Penrose Medal — Response by Susan Werner Kieffer Geological Society of America

2013

 * If we want to improve our odds of surviving disaster, we need to do two things. First, we need to be prepared for the rarest, biggest events. Currently we invest in infrastructure to protect us from the smaller events — be they tornados, eruptions, earthquakes or even small tsunamis that can be shut out by common storm wave barriers on exposed coastlines. But, we rarely have made the costly investments necessary to protect us from the rare, but truly devastating, big events.
 * Kieffer, S (2013) The Big Problem With Disaster Planning: Time Magazine, May 28, 2013.

2006

 * If I could take some liberty and propose a generality based on my own experience, I would say that scientists live internally with fundamentals, harmonics, overtones, and dissonances, but strive to seek and sort out the fundamental from the harmonics and overtones. Artists, on the other hand, have the liberty of portraying all of these simultaneously.
 * Furthermore, in the current intellectual climate, and with the large numbers of scientists in the world today, there are few measures of creativity. We measure productivity, not not simple numerical counting, or even measures of “impact.” Perhaps as a community, we need a new form of peer evaluations of individuals within that context.
 * Kieffer, S (2006). The concepts of beauty and creativity: Earth science thinking in Earth and Mind: How Geologists Think and Learn about the Earth, Geological Society of America Special Paper 413.