Find an Expert

The Jackson School has more than 150 researchers and faculty in all facets of the earth sciences. Use this database to find experts in any of our academic and research units. Media can also contact the Communications Office (anton.caputo@jsg.utexas.edu) for information or call (512) 232-9623.

Eric  Attias

Eric Attias

Marine electromagnetic imaging to study dynamic Earth processes associated with marine geohazards and resources. Research Interests: (1) The interplay between mantle plumes, submarine freshwater, and marine biodiversity in volcanic systems. (2) Hot-spot mantle plume geodynamics and submarine volcanism. (3) Slab rollback-driven toroidal and poloidal mantle flows at back-arc subduction zones and their role in the evolution of continental breakup. (4) Oceanic mid-ocean ridge transform faults’ role in quasi-periodic earthquake cycles. (5) Impact of ice-sheet retreat...
James A Austin

James A Austin

Stratigraphic evolution of a wide range of marine and lacustrine environments around the world
Nathan L Bangs

Nathan L Bangs

Structural development and tectonic processes along convergent margins; MCS methods to acquire 3-D images of structure and stratigraphy within subduction zones; processing, inversion, and modeling of seismic reflection data
Thorsten  Becker

Thorsten Becker

mantle convection; plate tectonics; structural seismology; numerical modeling; earthquakes; fluid dynamics
Athma R Bhandari

Athma R Bhandari

Experimental rock mechanics Geotechnical laboratory testing Measurement of porosity and permeability in gas and oil shales Digital-image-based deformation measurements Microstructure characterization of soils and rocks Constitutive and numerical modeling of soils and rocks
Donald D Blankenship

Donald D Blankenship

Antarctic ice sheets, robotic space missions to Europa, airborne and ground-based geophysical techniques (including laser altimetry, radar sounding, seismic reflection and refraction), West Antarctic rift system, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, climate change, global warming, remote sensing, Thwaites glacier, East Antarctica, Europa Clipper

David C Bolton

Earthquakes,Fault Mechanics, Rock Deformation, Ultrasonic Monitoring

Donald Brooks

Dillon P Buhl

Alejandro  Cardona

Alejandro Cardona

A well-rounded energy transition requires fundamental and applied research that addresses geomechanical and petrophysical behavior of geological porous materials. My current research has explored rocks and sediments (i) under extreme conditions (high pressure and stresses), (ii) saturated and interacting with complex fluids (hydrates), and (iii) subjected to localizations of all kinds (fractures).
Ginny Catania

Ginny Catania

Ice sheet mass balance, ice dynamics, subglacial hydrology, ice sheet stratigraphy, radar, GPS methods, uncertainty in ice sheet response to climate, satellite observations, remote-sensing observations, outlet glaciers, Greenland, glaciology, Antarctica, sea level, ice-ocean interactions. UT Cryosphere.
Ian W Dalziel

Ian W Dalziel

Tectonics, geodynamics, geography of ancient times, plate reconstructions, structural geology
Marcy B Davis

Marcy B Davis

Multibeam sonar acquisition and data processing; Map, figure, project promotional materials and poster illustration using GMT, MB System, Fledermaus, Adobe CS2, ArcGIS, and csh; Web page design and maintenance; Science writing
Daniel D Duncan

Daniel D Duncan

geochemistry; collection and processing of soil and water samples for naturally occurring radioisotopes, trace metals and total suspended matter; maintain radiochemical instrumentation for prepared sample analyses

Gonzalo Echeverry

Peter B Flemings

Peter B Flemings

Stratigraphy, basin analysis, basin-scale fluid flow, pore pressures in seafloor sediments, submarine landslides, oil and gas migration, methane hydrates, Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP)
John A Goff

John A Goff

Seafloor morphology and bathymetry, swath sonar mapping, stratigraphy of the shallow seabed, ultra-high resolution seismic reflection (chrip) systems, sedimentary horizons, sea ice draft, crustal heterogeneity, canyon morphology on continental slopes, abyssal hills

Cyril Grima

Sean S Gulick

Sean S Gulick

– Marine and planetary geophysical imaging at nested resolutions and ground truth through drilling, coring, logging, and sampling.
– Tectonic processes, tectonic-climate interactions, and geohazards of convergent margins and transitional tectonic environments.
– Role of catastrophism in the geologic record including impact cratering, hurricanes, and tectonic events.
– Planetary habitability, impact generated ecosystems, biotic crises.
Shuoshuo  Han

Shuoshuo Han

Shuoshuo is interested in the structure, tectonic processes, and related hazards at subduction zones, and the formation and evolution of oceanic lithosphere. She uses active source seismic data to image the detailed structures of the sediment, oceanic crust and uppermost mantle. She also integrates seismic data with ocean drilling data to constrain physical properties, and infer in-situ stress states of the subsurface. Her recent studies have focused on the Cascadia subduction zone offshore the west...
Patrick  Heimbach

Patrick Heimbach

Heimbach's research group (Computational Research in Ice and Ocean Systems -- [link:https://crios-ut.github.io](CRIOS)[/link]), in the [link:https://oden.utexas.edu]Oden Institute[/link] is engaged in a number of projects, with main funding from NASA, NSF, and ONR. [bold](1)[/bold] Our overarching research focusses on understanding the global ocean circulation, its role in climate variability and change, and its predictability on seasonal to decadal time scales. As part of the NASA-funded "Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean" [link:https://ecco-group.org](ECCO)[/link] consortium involving colleagues at...
Douglas  Hemingway

Douglas Hemingway

I have broad interests in the processes that drive the evolution and behavior of planetary bodies of all kinds and what gives rise to all the diversity we see across our solar system and beyond. My research primarily involves [bold]geophysical modelling[/bold], with constraints coming in large part from spacecraft-based observations, especially relating to [bold]gravitational and magnetic fields[/bold]. I work on problems related to magnetism, gravity, topography, elasticity/flexure/fracturing, heat production/transfer, and fluid dynamics. Some of my...
Thomas Hess

Thomas Hess

Geoscience software, anisotropic imaging, seismic processing, seismic geometry, deconvolution, problem solving.
Brian K Horton

Brian K Horton

Tectonics of sedimentary basins, evolution of orogenic systems, sediment provenance and routing systems, nonmarine depositional processes.
Zhe  Jia

Zhe Jia

Earthquake source complexities and their controlling factors, seismic and tsunami hazards, subduction process, injection-induced seismicity, dense seismic/geodetic arrays. See more on my personal website: [link:https://jiazhe868.github.io/] [/link]
Benjamin  Keisling

Benjamin Keisling

Past climate, ice sheet dynamics, justice in geoscience
Scott D Kempf

Scott D Kempf

Data management, radar data, airborne geophysics, computer systems, computer programming, carrier phase GPS processing, LIDAR, magnetic and gravity surveying.
Christopher  Lowery

Christopher Lowery

Micropaleontology, Stratigraphy, Paleoceanography, Geochemistry

Gregory C Ng

Yuko M Okumura

Yuko M Okumura

Climate dynamics, climate variability and change, large-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions, atmospheric teleconnections, paleoclimate and thermohaline circulation, climate change
Judson W Partin

Judson W Partin

Paleoclimate, Stable and Radiogenic Isotope Geochemistry, climate change
Cornelia  Rasmussen

Cornelia Rasmussen

Paleoecology, geobiology, geochemistry, geochronology, sedimentology

Thomas G Richter

Demian M Saffer

Demian M Saffer

Active tectonics, fault/sediment mechanics, geohydrology.
John W Snedden

John W Snedden

Gulf of Mexico Basin global expert, Sequence Stratigraphy, Sedimentology, Reservoir Development and Connectivity, Petroleum Geoscience
Krista M Soderlund

Krista M Soderlund

Astrobiology, Cryosphere, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Magnetohydrodynamics, Planetary Science
Michael L Sweet

Michael L Sweet

Carla M Thomas

Carla M Thomas

Danielle  Touma

Danielle Touma

climate variability, climate change, extreme climate events, natural hazards, hydroclimatology
Harm J Van Avendonk

Harm J Van Avendonk

Van Avendonk is an active-source seismologist who specializes in the acquisition and inversion of seismic refraction data on land and at sea. Often these seismic refraction data are used for a tomographic inversion. The resultant seismic velocity models help us to interpret the composition of the Earth’s crust and mantle, the geometry of sedimentary basins, and the structure of plate boundaries.

Annie Walker

Laura Wallace

Crustal deformation, GPS/Geodesy, active plate boundary processes, subduction tectonics, geohazards
Timothy L Whiteaker

Timothy L Whiteaker

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in water resources engineering; hydrologic, hydraulic, and water quality modeling; scientific information management; bringing water resources engineering solutions to end users by developing Web and desktop applications.
Yujiang  Xie

Yujiang Xie

Geophysics, Seismology

Chi Yan

Kehua  You

Kehua You

Carbon cycle, Methane Hydrate, Hydrogeology, Flow and Transport in Porous Media, Analytical and Numerical Modeling
Duncan A Young

Duncan A Young

Polar remote sensing (especially areogeophysics), glaciology and geoscience. Member of the [italic]Europa Clipper[/italic] project science group, a mission to Jupiters ocean world Europa. Lead for the [italic]Europa Clipper's[/italic] radar instrument's (REASON) Science Data System and science requirements validation and verification. Ice-rock physical interactions in an ice cap context, tectonic evolution of the younger planetary crusts