Arianna Elizabeth Gleason Holbrook[1] (born 1980)[2] is an Americancondensed matter physicist andplanetary scientist who studies the behavior of matter in extreme conditions of pressure and temperature, as can be found at the cores of planets and stars, in planetary collisions, during certain kinds of explosion, and, on a smaller scale, incavitation.[3] Gleason works at theSLAC National Accelerator Laboratory as a staff scientist and deputy division director in the Fundamental Physics Directorate, High Energy Density Science Division, and as an adjunct faculty member atStanford University in its departments of geological science and mechanical engineering.[4]
Gleason majored in geosciences at theUniversity of Arizona, where she received her bachelor's degree in 2003.[5] After interning at theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,[6] she went on to graduate study in Earth and planetary science at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, where she completed her Ph.D. in 2010,[5] supervised byRaymond Jeanloz.[6]
She became a postdoctoral researcher atStanford University in 2010,[5] working withWendy Mao,[6] and continued as a Frederick Reines and Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at theLos Alamos National Laboratory from 2014 to 2018.[4] She obtained a permanent position as a staff scientist at SLAC in 2018.[5]
As a student in Arizona, Gleason worked in theSpacewatch project;[3][5] her discoveries through the project included multipleminor planets as well asC/2003 A2 (Gleason), acomet.[5] As of 2022, it still had the most distantperihelion (the closest point in its orbit to the sun) of any knownlong-period comet.[7]
Her research on materials in extreme environments has included the unexpected discovery of weaknesses and non-uniform structure in the solid iron and nickel ofEarth's inner core.[8] She has also found ways to createice VII andsuperionic ice, exotic forms of water, by using intense laser light to vaporize a target sandwiching water between thindiamond crystals.[9][10]
Gleason was the 2014 recipient of the inaugural Mineral and Rock Physics Early Career Award of theAmerican Geophysical Union Mineral and Rock Physics Focus Group.[6] She was a 2019 recipient of the DOE Early Career Award,[3] and a 2025 recipient of thePresidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.[11]
Minor planet10639 Gleason is named for Gleason.[2]
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