About Me
Hi there! I am a research scientist at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. My research combines seismology, geodesy, and oceanography to study all things earthquakes and tsunamis. I am particularly interested in the real time characterization of geophysical processes to create informed early warning alerts.
Position
2024 - present: research scientist, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory
2021 - 2024: postdoctoral researcher, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory
2020 - 2021: duty scientist, National Tsunami Warning Center
2018 - 2020: postdoctoral researcher, University of Oregon
Education
2018: PhD in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georiga Institute of Technology
2013: BS in Geosciences, Denison University
Research Interests
Keywords: natural hazards, earthquake early warning, tsunami modeling, GNSS
My research interests have focused on a variety of techniques to improve our understanding of earthquake source processes through the merging of both submarine and terrestrial datasets. I have a particular interest in studying tsunamigenic events because of their large scale impact on communities on an ocean basin scale.
Earthquake Early Warning
The ShakeAlert EEW system rapidly locates and characterizes earthquakes using real time data from broadband and strong-motion seismometers. Within seconds of an earthquake rupture, alerts can be sent to users warning of potential shaking, often before the arrival of the more damaging S-wave. These alerts are crucial for people in areas where potentially damaging shaking can ocur, allowing for proactive action to mitigate risk. As a postdoctoral researcher and now as a research scientist, I actively work to improve the real-time characterization of earthquakes within ShakeAlert. To date, I have:
- developed a real-time weighting scheme to improve earthquake location estimates in the ShakeAlert EEW algorithm, EPIC Earthquake Early Warning (EEW)
- created updated station magnitude scaling relations to better characterize station magnitudes from near-field stations in ShakeAlert
- developed per-station site corrections to account for localized amplification
Tsunami Modeling & Tsunami Early Warning
- probabilistic tsunami hazard modeling using event clustering
- landslide generated tsunami hazard assessments for the Barry Arm and greater Prince William Sound, Alaska
- high resolution tsunami modeling including complex earthquake rupture parameters
Geodesy
- developing quality control tools to analyze real-time on-board positions within the BARD GNSS network
- testing the efficacy of rapid GNSS data products for use in earthquake and tsunami early warning algorithms