Nicholas J. Montiel, Ph.D. is a geologist and planetary scientist at the Universitá degli Studi di Padova (University of Padua) in Italy. He is also an Arizonan who grew up on a steady diet of science fiction, history, amateur astronomy, hiking, weird music, and tabletop games.
Nicholas graduated from the University of Arizona with a major in geoscience and minor in planetary science. During his four years in Tucson, he participated in a number of eclectic research projects. He was a telescope operator at the 61″ Gerard P. Kuiper Telescope at the Steward Observatory Catalina Station in the Babad Do’ag Mountains, interned at the Organic Geochemistry Lab, and participated in a study of Titan’s surface composition and geology at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory.
After graduation, he was accepted into the graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin. While there, Nicholas studied the deep Earth carbon cycle, continental rifting and supercontinent break-up, corona evolution on Venus, and cryotectonics and mission design for Titan. He used 2D numerical models in concert with traditional geological observations, seismic imaging, and remote sensing. His thesis dissertation “Tectonic and Magmatic Processes During Extension in Planetary Lithospheres:
Rifting, Spreading, Delamination, and Recycling on Earth and Venus” explored comparative planetology of extensional tectonic systems on Venus and Earth, especially with regards to local stress environments, magmatism, and thermal conditions.
In August of 2024, Dr. Nicholas Montiel defended his dissertation and became a post-doctoral researcher the Universitá degli Studi di Padova investigating the link between volcanism and coronae at a global scale on Venus as part of the HECATE project. He is also a committee member for the Organization for Venus Early-Career Networking (OVEN). Nicholas’s research interests encompass geological processes in the mantle, supercontinent cycles on Earth, and the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets.
Nicholas also has extensive teaching experience, having been a TA at both the University of Arizona and the University of Texas. He has taught introductory geology, structural geology, field geology, paleontology, sustainability, and Earth systems labs to undergraduate students (some of these during the COVID-19 pandemic). Nicholas has taught the general public as well through science talks at public venues and online. Outside of his scientific work, Nicholas is an TTRPG enthusiast, reader, (novice) boulderer, (also novice) amateur astronomer, and book collector.
The Site Formerly Known as Twitter: @thePaleomancer
Threads: @palaeomancer
Email: nmontiel@utexas.edu / njmontiel@gmail.com
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicholas-Montiel