Information for prospective students

Seismological recordings of volcanic processes are both the most abundant and the most widely used by volcano monitoring agencies for real-time assessment of the volcanic hazard. Volcano seismology is most powerful when combined with other geophysical and geological information. I am looking for students with skills in mathematics and physics who are primarily interested in seismology research, but who are eager to conduct interdisciplinary research to enhance their seismic modeling. I encourage students to be involved with acquiring data for their projects, which could mean spending a significant amount of time in field within the U.S. or abroad. Michigan Tech's strengths in volcanology (our department has one of the largest volcanology graduate programs in the country), remote sensing and exploration geophysics are excellent compliments to students who are interested in volcano seismology and the deformation of the crust and upper mantle.

I currently am working with students on projects at Mount St. Helens, Yellowstone, and Newberry volcanoes in the U.S., Fuego and Pacaya volcanoes in Guatemala, and Villarrica Volcano in Chile, which involve seismic investigations of crustal structure and volcanic processes. Students will learn to apply seismological techniques such as moment tensor inversion, seismic tomography, receiver function analysis, shear-wave anisotropy analysis, and generation of Green's functions from seismic noise. For more information on some of my current projects, please contact me.

For general information about Michigan Tech, please take a look at the Graduate School web site.