Sr. Research Scientist
Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Education: PhD, Geophysics, Univ. Minnesota, 2003
B.Sc. Brown University, 1995
Bio: Dr. Ben Holtzman is a Senior Research Scientist in ERL and the Department of Earth, Atmospheric an Planetary Sciences. He studies the mechanical behavior of rocks, with a broad range of applications, including how magmas move through the planet’s interior to feed volcanoes, how seismic waves move through the deep Earth, and how earthquakes occur. He now focuses on deep geothermal heat mining– finding new ways to access the Earth’s internal heat to generate electricity without producing greenhouse gases.
Dr. Holtzman joined ERL as a Visiting Scientist in 2021 and became a Senior Research Scientist in 2024. He came to MIT from the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, where he worked full time from 2004-2024, and remains affiliated. At Columbia, he also founded the Seismic Sound Lab and served as Scientist-in-Residence at the Computer Music Center. He received his Ph.D. in Geophysics in 2003 from the University of Minnesota.