Dr. Roberta Flemming is a Professor in Earth Sciences and the Director of the Micro X-ray Diffraction Facility at Western. She is a mineralogist by training. Her research uses minerals as interpretive and predictive tools to reveal past and present processes on Earth and other planetary bodies, including the moon and Mars. Her research program involves innovative applications of micro-XRD and NMR spectroscopy, and allied methods, to study Earth and planetary materials. She uses Solid State NMR to quantify minerals as recorders of temperature in the early solar system and terrestrial rocks, by making systematic observations of crystal structure and cation distribution (order-disorder) for key mineral suites. She uses in situ XRD and EPMA to correlate crystal structural parameters to chemical composition in minerals, including olivine in meteorites, to aid in their classification. She is pioneering the development of in situ XRD to quantify and calibrate minerals as recorders of crystal deformation in Earth and planetary materials. She is also leading a multidisciplinary multi-institutional team, with Canadian Space Agency funding, to develop a “Miniaturized In-situ XRD for Mineralogical Characterization of Planetary Surfaces” with a focus on Mars.