Discipline: Geosciences

Earth’s surface is constantly changing as water, wind and gravity sculpt landscapes via the transport of sediment in rivers and on hillslopes. These natural systems can exhibit dynamics and pattern formation similar to those found in soft materials such as toothpaste, biological tissue, and food products. My research focuses on an emerging frontier at the … Continued

My research program is focused on developing an improved understanding of earthquakes, fault zones, and the hazards they pose to society. Large earthquakes are very difficult to study in detail because they are infrequent, with typical time between repeat events being hundreds to thousands of years. Instead, I aim to better understand the physics of … Continued

I aim to understand Earth’s large-scale properties that govern plate tectonics, the process behind mountain building, earthquakes, volcanism, and setting Earth’s long-term surface environment. To do this, I study processes across wide timescales, from earth tides (~hr) to ice-age rebound (~10,000 y), developing a rigorous theoretical understanding of these dissipative processes across this broad spectrum. … Continued

How did our Solar System, in general, and the Earth, in particular, form? Long inaccessible, the answer to this fundamental question is encoded in the very isotopic composition of meteorites: i.e., the remnants of Solar System and planetary formation. Decoding these telltale signatures provides a means of reconstructing the genealogy and evolutionary pathway of planetary … Continued

My research uses the combined tools of climate dynamics, statistics, and machine learning to describe, understand, and predict climate variability and change. The overarching motivation of my research program is to reduce uncertainty about the future climate through developing interpretable, predictive models that can be validated using available data. This information is essential for policymakers … Continued

My research integrates field, lab, and model experiments in order to determine how the global water cycle has responded to past episodes of climate change. My primary focus is on the complex setting of tropical land areas, where the behavior of rainfall depends on conditions in distant oceans and land surfaces and on mixing, condensation, … Continued

Rainstorms are ubiquitous in Earth’s atmosphere, and different types of rainstorms have their own characteristic spatial scales. For example, the typical spatial scale of hurricanes is about 1000 km, neither 100 km nor 10,000 km. What environmental factors determine the spatial scale of different types of rainstorms? How will their spatial scales change in a … Continued

I reconstruct the Earth’s temperature record using a unique combination of field observations, micro-analytical, and geochemical methods. My data suggest that before the appearance of macroscopic animals and the evolution of modern phyla, climate was volatile and equatorial sea surface temperatures were elevated compared to the present. This observation goes against the consensus view that … Continued

My research focuses on earthquake sources and their consequences. My approach is to create new observational tools that help validate physical models. I use strong ground motion recordings to unravel the mechanisms that control the physics of earthquake ruptures. I use weak ground motions to decipher the effects of complex geological structure on seismic wave … Continued