Meet Rhiana Elizabeth Henry - Mineralogist

Rhiana Elizabeth Henry is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia, department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, within the Mineralogical Research Group led by Dr. Lee Groat. Her specialty is gemstone mineralogy. Her Ph.D research is on the crystal-chemistry of beryl. She uses single-crystal X-ray diffraction and chemical analyses to study the H2O content within the crystal structure of beryl, related to Na content, chemical differences between beryl varieties, and to create a predictive model of how the beryl structure changes with varied chemistry. This work can be used to help inform geological and gemological studies on beryl, find unique subtypes, and the modeling method can be extended to other minerals in the future. Rhiana completed her M.Sc. in Geologic Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2018 studying the crystallography of a Be-Fe-REE mineral gadolinite. She completed her Graduate Gemologist certification in 2018 at the Gemological Institute of America. She completed her two B.A. degrees in Physics and Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2013. She has been a teaching assistant for three different physics courses and four different geology courses. She is the mineral name checker for the journal Canadian Mineralogist, ensuring mineral names are properly described before publication. She is passionate about using gemstone mineralogy as a gateway for new students into geological science.