Jie Zhao is a PhD student researching paleoclimate in the Dead Sea region under the supervision of Dr. Yael Kiro in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Weizmann Institute. She obtained her BSc in Geology and MSc in Marine Science from the China University of Geosciences. Her PhD project focuses on characterizing shifts in water and dust sources to the Dead Sea watershed during past warm periods, spanning over millennia. To achieve this, she employs geochemical tools such as U, Pb, Sr, and Nd isotopes.

As the Dead Sea Basin straddles the Saharan desert and Mediterranean climate zones, the changes in water and dust sources may further refine our understanding of the expansion and contraction of these climate zones. The paleoclimate research can provide a long-term perspective on the behavior of regional hydroclimate in a warming world and complement model projections.