Current researchers
Isaac Rotimi (Grad researcher, 2023–Present)
Isaac is a PhD student who joined the group in Fall 2023. He is working on near-surface site characterization of sedimentary basins to better understanding basin architectures related to continental breakup in the southeastern US. His improved imaging of soft sediments will also contribute to ground motion modeling. His approach combines multiple data types including ambient noise HVSR, Rayleigh wave ellipticity, and phase/group velocity dispersion. In addition, he is interested in encorporating physics based machine learning into traditional geophysical inversion schemes.
Sarmad Rameez (Grad researcher, 2023–Present)
Sarmad is a PhD student who joined the group in Fall 2023. He is interested in crustal attenuation and what this seismic property can tell us about the thermal and magmatic state of magma chambers. He is currently developing and applying a novel ambient noise coda-Q tomography method to provide constraints on crustal attenuation at the Yellowstone Caldera. By combining these attenuation estimates with previous crustal velocity constraints and melt fraction estimates, this work helps quantify how melt affects anelasticity of crustal minerals. This will improve understanding of the state of the crustal magma reservoir at Yellowstone, and the method can be extended to other volcanoes globally.
Kenna Cummings (Undergrad researcher, 2025–Present)
Kenna is an undergraduate Geology major who joined the group in Spring 2025. Broadly, her interests include seismology and geothermal heat flow within the Earth. Currently, she is applying Rayleigh wave imaging techniques to obtain models of crust and mantle shear velocity of Greenland. Her interest is in the effects that the Iceland Hotspot track (50-80 Ma) has on the present-day thermal state of Greenland. This has important implications for heat flow at the base of the Greenland ice sheet and the current rate of ice loss.
Previous researchers
Charles Drew (2023–2024)
Charles was an undergraduate Physics major who joined our group for the 2023-2024 academic year, before graduating. He worked on a project related to site selection for the Cosmic Explorer gravitational wave observatory. This work involved testing algorithms for estimating digging costs using available topographic data. Charles is now pursuing a Master's at Carnegie Mellon.