Yujiang Xie

Yujiang Xie is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Geophysics, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he was a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton, UK. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2017.

Xie's research interests lie in theoretical and computational seismology and applied mathematics, including topics such as partial differential equations (PDEs), wave equations, wave simulations, seismic full-waveform modeling and inversion, and high-performance computing. Previously, Xie worked on 3D common-reflection-surface with global optimization, seismic data enhancement, and traveltime tomography using seismic ray theory (e.g., V. Cerveny, 2001). Since 2018, Xie has been working on full waveform inversion based on the finite-difference method and the adjoint state method (e.g., Virieux and Operto, 2009; Plessix, 2006), seismic adjoint tomography based on the spectral element and adjoint method (e.g., Komatitsch and Tromp, 1999; Tromp et al., 2005; Liu and Tromp, 2008), and the second-order adjoint method derived from the perturbation method (e.g., Fichtner and Trampert, 2011). Since 2024, Xie has been working on anisotropic FWI and anisotropic adjoint tomography in several parameterizations (e.g., Chen and Tromp, 2007; Sieminski et al., 2007) and/or second-order sensitivity at local, regional, and global scales, with the aim of mitigating the interparameter trade-offs (e.g., Fichtner et al., 2024).

Recommended books:
1. Cerveny, V. (2001). Seismic Ray Theory. Cambridge University Press.
2. Dahlen, F. A., & Tromp, J. (1998). Theoretical Global Seismology. Princeton University Press.

Selected work:
Xusong Yang, Yujiang Xie, Catherine A. Rychert, Nicholas Harmon, Saskia Goes, Andreas Rietbrock, Lloyd Lynch, and VoiLA Working Group, 2025. Seismic imaging of a basaltic Lesser Antilles slab from ancient tectonics, Nature, 640, 697-701. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08754-0

Tianshi Liu, Kai Wang, Yujiang Xie, Bin He, Ting Lei, Nanqiao Du, Ping Tong, Yingjie Yang, Catherine A. Rychert, Nicholas Harmon, Giovanni Grasselli, Qinya Liu, 2024. Cube2sph: A Toolkit Enabling Flexible and Accurate Continental-scale Seismic Wave Simulations using the SPECFEM3D Package, Computers & Geosciences, 190, 105644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2024.105644

Yujiang Xie, Catherine Rychert, Nicholas Harmon, 2023. Elastic and anelastic adjoint tomography with and full Hessian kernels, Geophysical Journal International , 234, 1205-1235. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggad114

Peng Yang, Dirk Gagewski and Yujiang Xie, 2023. Gaussian-weighted cross-correlation imaging condition for microseismic source localization, Geophysics, 88, 1-96. https://doi.org/10.1190/geo2022-0455.1

Nicholas Harmon, Catherine Rychert, Yujiang Xie and Bogiatzis Petros, 2022 Analytic P-to-S and S-to-P scattered wave sensitivity kernels, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems , 23, e2021GC010290. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GC010290

Bogiatzis Petros, Catherine Rychert, Nicholas Harmon and Yujiang Xie, 2022. Fast calculation of spatial sensitivity kernels for converted waves in arbitrary heterogeneous media using graph theory, Geophysical Journal International , 230, 654-672. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggac078

Yujiang Xie, Catherine Rychert, Nicholas Harmon, Qinya Liu and Dirk Gajewski, 2021. On-the-fly Full Hessian Kernel Calculations Based upon Seismic Wave Simulations, Seismological Research Letters , 92(6), 3832-3844. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220200410

Lei Li, Jingquan Tan, Dazhou Zhang, Ajay Malkoti, Ivan Abakumov and Yujiang Xie, 2021. FDwave3D: A MATLAB solver for the 3D anisotropic wave equation using the finite-difference method, Computational Geosciences, 25, 1565-1578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-021-10060-3

Yujiang Xie and Dirk Gajewski, 2019. Reliability of data-driven wavefront attributes in laterally heterogeneous media, Geophysics, 84(3), O49-O62. https://doi.org/10.1190/geo2018-0382.1

Lei Li, Jingquan Tan, Yujiang Xie, Yuyang Tan, Jan Walda, Zhengguang Zhao and Dirk Gajewski, 2019. Waveform-based microseismic location using stochastic optimization algorithms: A parameter tuning workflow, Computers & Geosciences, 124, 115-127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2019.01.002

Yujiang Xie and Dirk Gajewski, 2018. 3-D wavefront attribute determination and conflicting dip processing, Geophysics, 83(6), V325-V343. https://doi.org/10.1190/geo2017-0792.1

Yujiang Xie and Dirk Gajewski, 2017. 5-D interpolation with wavefront attributes, Geophysical Journal International, 211, 897-919. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggx334

Yujiang Xie and Gao Liu, 2015. Resolution enhancement of non-stationary seismic data using amplitude-frequency partition, Geophysical Journal International, 200, 773-778. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggu401

Yujiang Xie and Gao Liu, 2014. Predicting the distribution of reservoirs by combining variable wavelet model of seismograms with wavelet edge analysis and modeling, Journal of Applied Geophysics, 101, 116-123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2013.12.005