Juliet Crider studies the physical processes that shape the Earth’s surface, including some of its more charismatic landforms, such as mountains and volcanoes. She focuses largely on fairly recent phenomena, at least geologically speaking, working in the North Cascades to investigate the origins of the mountains, or in the Columbia Plateau, which lies across parts of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. She uses a mix of field studies and computer modeling to look at the dynamism of the planet’s upper crust, and is developing new analytical tools to advance all these efforts. She is also founding director of the Applied Geosciences Masters program, working to help students bridge theory and practice in addressing the interactions between human infrastructure and the region’s dynamic landscape.