Arianna Soldati

Arianna Soldati is a volcanologist and National Geographic Explorer. For her PhD, she focused primarily on Central American volcanoes, including Arenal and Poas in Costa Rica and Pacaya and Fuego in Guatemala. She was first funded by the National Geographic Society in 2016 to explore the connection between how fast and how far lava flows and its surface appearance on the volcanic island of La Réunion. Currently, she is a professor at North Carolina State University, and together with her students, she focuses on Hawaii's diverse volcanic activity. Most recently, her work has taken her to the active Meradalir eruption in Iceland.

In addition to these pursuits, Arianna is passionate about science communication and outreach. While living in Missouri, she founded a program called Science on Wheels that continues to bring locally relevant science to citizens living in rural communities. She was the scientific expert for the National Geographic Kids book Absolute Expert: Volcanoes and has written for CNN and Scientific American. She is currently developing a citizen science app to enable tourists and people living near active volcanoes to report eruptive activity.