Nan Liu

Cosmochemist · Decoding Galactic chemical history through meteoritic stardust

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I am a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Astrophysical Research, Boston University. My research uses in situ isotope measurements of microscopic stardust grains — preserved in primitive meteorites for billions of years — to test theoretical models of stellar nucleosynthesis and trace the chemical evolution of our Galaxy. I received my Ph.D. in Cosmochemistry from the University of Chicago in 2014, and was previously a Research Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis (2018–2022) and a Postdoctoral Associate at Carnegie EPL (2014–2017).

Research

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News

10/2026 Invited talk (upcoming) at the 18th International Symposium on Origin and Evolution of Galaxies (OMEG18), RIKEN, Japan.
09/2026 Invited talk (upcoming) at Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics XII, Cluj-Napoca, Romania: Meteoritic isotopic anomalies as precision tests of stellar nucleosynthesis.
05/2026 Invited talk (upcoming) at Astrophysics with Radioactive Isotopes 2026, Traverse City, MI: Radioactive Isotopes in Presolar Supernova Grains.