Meet a Geoscientist: Priyanka Periwal

Priyanka is the Electron Microscopist and Lab Manager of the eMAGE Lab at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG). She holds dual master’s degrees in Nanotechnology and a Ph.D. in Materials Science from Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France, and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Delhi, India. She completed her postdoctoral research at the University of Cambridge, UK, and at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, New York, where she investigated atomic scale semiconductor growth on graphene using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Her early research focused on the development and characterization of silicon, germanium, and polymer-based semiconducting materials for transistor and biosensor applications using advanced microscopy tools such as SEM, TEM, and AFM. At BEG, she manages the eMAGE Lab and collaborates with multidisciplinary research groups to provide SEM-based solutions for the characterization of rocks and engineered materials. Her current research interests include understanding critical mineral occurrences, hydrogen production processes in rocks, and diagenetic transformations in mudrocks and carbonates using cathodoluminescence microscopy.

Additional Resources:

eMAGE lab: https://www.beg.utexas.edu/research/labs/sem

Latest eMAGE Lab work on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fe-sem-lab-at-beg-jsg-utaustin/