Mountain of Fire

Julie Roberge has been studying volcanoes around the world for over 25 years. Nicknamed the "Ash Hunter," she is originally from Nicolet, Quebec, and is a professor and research scientist at the Polytechnic School of Mexico (Instituto Politécnico Nacional). She did her bachelor's degree in geology at the University of Montreal, her master's degree at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi and her doctorate at the University of Oregon. Julie has been collecting rocks since she was young and it was the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 that ignited her passion for volcanoes. Today she hunts the ashes of erupting volcanoes to look for magmatic inclusions, small balls of magma caught inside crystals that go from 1200 to 25 degrees Celsius to become glass droplets during an eruption. She lives in Mexico City.