Hazel Rymer

Hazel Rymer is a British volcanologist and pro-vice chancellor at the Open University. Her research investigates how active volcanoes affect their environment and impact global climate change. She leads the citizen science project Earth Watch. and studied physics at the University of Reading. She earned her PhD in geophysics from the Open University which studied sub-surfaces of volcanoes in Costa Rica. She looked at the structure of pit craters in Masaya Volcano.

Career and research Rymer's research focuses on the environmental and ecological hazards posed by active volcanoes. Rymer looked to track the volatile flux of the Mount Etna, Masaya and Poás volcanoes by monitoring the volcanic plume and environmental sinks. She chose these volcanoes because they have persistent, low levels of volcanic activity. Her research looks to inform evacuation strategies and crop cultivation. She has worked on new microgravity meters to monitor the magma inside volcanoes. The gravity meters contain very sensitive spring balances. Rymer places these meters at hundreds of places across a volcano, developing a contour map that details how gravity varies in space.

She began to study Poás Volcano, which she describes as her favourite, in 1989. Because she has been following it for so long, she has been able to develop forecasts about when the volcano may erupt in the future. Volunteers use Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors to monitor for volcanic gases and devices that collect geoelectric information. These informed operational guidelines for monitoring degassing for Nicaragua and Costa Rica. She is interested in the environmental impact of volcanoes. She contributed to the 2015 Encyclopedia of Volcanoes. In 2016 Rymer appeared on The Life Scientific. Rymer was appointed pro-vice chancellor at the Open University in 2018.