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Academic Interests

My research interests broadly focus on understanding coupling between distinct Earth processes across large spatiotemoral scales and developing open-source community tools to address these problems.

Within this domain my externally funded research group is working on a wide range of topics including

• Reactive fluid volatile transport across distinct tectonic systems
• The large-scale dynamics of subduction systems
• Interactions between ice sheet evolution, lithospheric deformation, and volcanism
• Coupled landscape and basin evolution during continental rifting and compression
• The effects of fault zone rheology on long-stress states and seismogenic processes within complex fault networks.

My long-term goals are to build on the knowledge and computational infrastructure developed in these projects towards addressing key societal challenges relating to earth resources, natural hazards, climate change.

Current and Recent Group Member

• Daniel Douglas (PhD Candidate)
• Prajakta Mohite (MS Student)
• Frederick Lacombe (MS Student)
• Tahiry Rajaonarison (Recent Postdoctoral Scholar and now NMT HPC Computing Specialist)
• Liang Xue (Recent Researcher, and now Project Scientist at UC Davis)

Available Positions

• PhD Opportunity (Fully Funded for Four Years) - I am currently looking for a PhD student to work on new approaches for modeling the nteraction between solid Earth and landscape evolution processes. The position is part of a larger NSF-funded collaborative effort to couple existing landscape evolution and geodynamic software packages, and use the new software elements to develop state-of-the-art multiphysics Earth system simulations. The PhD student will work on various technical components of the software coupling and its application to problems including continental rift evolution, large-scale subduction dynamics, volcanic systems, and global deformation patterns. The position will involve close collaboration with project partners at multiple institutions, including attendance of annual conferences, project workshops, and hackathons.

Activate Projects and Awards

Coupling between Geodynamic and Landscape Evolution Software

This project is supported by a collaborative NSF CSSI award (#2410850) between multiple institutions, which will coupled the open source and community-driven landscape evolution library Landlab with theAdvanced Solver for Planetary Evolution, Convection, and Tectonics (ASPECT). Coupling these two codes will enable the community to address frontier research questions regarding how the solid Earth interacts and is coupled with the processes acting at its surface. Activities at NMT will focus on (1) supporting and testing the coupling implementations and (2) development of advanced use cases associated with continental rift evolution, large-scale subduction dynamics, volcanic systems, and global deformation patterns. I am currently looking for a PhD student for this position!

Development and Application of a Framework for Integrated Geodynamic Earth Models 

A long-stand challenge in the geodynamics is the development of solid Earth models that accurately simulate present-day tectonics processes at both global and regional scales. This collaborative effort funded through the NSF Frontier Research in Earth Sciences program is addressing this challenge by developing Integrated Geodynamic Earth Models, which range from global simulations of present-day solid Earth motions to high-resolution regional models of specific plate boundaries that are coupled to global simulations. 

My reseach group is focusing on the development of present-day regional simulations of the Hikurangui-Kermadec subduction system (recent paper in G3), coupling of the regional simulations to global mantle flow patterns, and coupled reactive two-phase volatile transport within subduction systems. This work is being led by Daniel Douglas (PhD candidate) and supported by Frederick Lacombe (MS Student) and Liang Xue (Researcher).

Quantifying the effects of glaciation on crustal stress and eruptive patterns at Mt. Waesche, Executive Committee Range, Antarctica 

My A wide range of research over the last three decades has demonstrated the link between climate-driven changes in loading at Earth's surface, such as ice sheet thickness, and the timing of volcanism. Such links have recently been established at Mt. Waesche within the Excutive Committee Range in Western Antartica, where the timing of eruptions over the last 500 Kyr is correlated with interglacial periods with lower ice sheet thicknesses. My group is currently working on numerical simulations of dike propogration and coupled lithospheric deformation and two-phase reactive melt transport to constrain the different physical mechanisms that are driving eruptions during interglacial periods. This work is supported by an active NSF Office of Polar Programs award (NSF-OPP 2122248) led by Dr. Laura Waters (PI), myself (co-PI), and Matt Zimmerer (co-PI) - "Integrating Petrologic Records and Geodynamics: Quantifying the Effects of  Glaciation on Crustal Stress and Eruptive Patterns at Mt. Waesche".

Lithospheric Structure and Evolution During Continental Rifting

The dynamics of continental rifting has been a long-standing focus of my research group, which is currently exploring the role of structural inheritance and multiphase rifting on the evolution of rifting and lithospheric structure in the Gulf of California, Southeast Brazilian Margin, and East African Margin. The latter two projects are funded through industry-sponsored projects led by Douglas Paton at TectonKnow, which are focused on providing constraints on the thermal evoltuion of basins through coupled geodynamic-landscape evolution systems and tectonic reconstruction data integration. This geodynamic modeling portion of this work is being led Dr. Tahiry Rajaonarison and Liang Xue.

Neotectonic System Dynamics and Fault Architecture 

We have recently begun exploring the relationship between lithospheric deformation and 3D fault archicecture in neotectonic systems through integration of observed fault architecture and regional kinematics into geodynamics simulations. We have begun applying this work to active in the portions of the Eastern California Shear Zone through support the Statewide California Earthquake Center (Award 23202), Alamagordo Fault in New Mexico, and Isliye caldera in Italy.

Appointments

• 2025 (August)- Associate Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM
• 2020-Present - Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Science, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM 
• 2018-2020 - Assistant Research Scientist, Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis
• 2016-2018 - Assistant Project Scientist, Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis
• 2013-2015 - Postdoctoral Researcher, Geodynamics Teams, Geological Survey of Norway
• 2010-2013 - Postdoctoral Scholar and Lecturer, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis.

 Education

• 2006-2009 - Ph.D., Geology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
• 2003-2005 - M.S., Geology, University of California, Davis, CA
• 1999-2003 - B.S., Geology, University of California, Davis, CA