People at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

People at UTIG

UTIG hosts forty-five research scientists, eight postdoctoral fellows, three emeritus faculty, and visiting scientists.


Director: Terry Quinn
Associate Director: Cliff Frohlich

Research Staff

Name Area of Interest Project Location
Austin, Jamie stratigraphy marine and lacustrine environments
Bangs, Nathan structure, tectonic processes convergent margins
Blankenship, Don ice sheet dynamics, subglacial geology, airborne/ground geophysical techniques, planetary studies Antarctica
Catania, Ginny cryosphere, ice dynamics, glacier hydrology, remote sensing of ice sheet change Antarctica, Greenland
Christeson, Gail crustal structure Gulf of Alaska, SE Caribbean, Hess Deep, Blanco Fracture Zone
Dalziel, Ian global tectonic processes, geography of ancient Earth Antarctica, Africa
Ellins, Kathy geoscience education (teacher training, curriculum development); learning science Texas, Nation (U.S.), New Mexico, Jamaica
Flemings, Peter crustal fluid flow Gulf of Mexico
Frohlich, Cliff deep earthquakes, Texas earthquakes, moonquakes, and the statistical analysis of earthquake catalogs global, Texas
Fulthorpe, Craig sequence stratigraphy, geological processes, global sea level New Zealand, New Jersey Shelf
Galloway, Bill clastic depositional systems Gulf of Mexico
Goff, John seafloor mapping, characterization and statistical analysis of geophysical fields New Jersey Shelf
Grand, Steve seismic imaging of Earth's mantle, tomography, dynamics of flow in the mantle, regional seismic studies
Gulick, Sean tectonic processes, glacial interactions, impact structures, geohazards Alaska, Haiti, Sumatra, Japan
Hayman, Nick faults, structural geology, tectonics, and lithospheric dynamics Japan, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Northwest, Tierra del Fuego
Holt, Jack mapping of ice and features beneath the ice using airborne geophysics and radar analysis techniques Antarctica, Mars
Horton, Brian tectonics of sedimentary basins Andes, Tibet, Zagros
Jackson, Charles uncertainty quantification and climate dynamics
Kim, Wonsuck quantitative stratigraphy, shoreline dynamics, morphodynamics, sediment transport, deltaic sedimentation Mississippi River
Lavier, Luc tectonics, structural & geodynamic evolution continental & oceanic rifts, collisional environments
Lawver, Lawrence paleogeographic reconstructions, paleo-seaways, aerogeophysics Arctic, Antarctica, Southeast Asia
Levy, Joseph Permafrost, Planetary Geology, Geology and Climate Change, Terrestrial Analogs, Geomorphology Antarctica, Mars, U.S. Mountain West
MacGregor, Joe glaciogical settings of modern ice sheets and glaciers Antarctica
McIntosh, Kirk Structure and tectonics of continental margins and continental interiors Central America, Taiwan and the South China Sea, Mississippi River
Nakamura, Yosio terrestrial and extraterrestrial seismology Gulf of Mexico, Taiwan, the moon
Norton, Ian structure, regional-scale plate reconstructions continental margins
Okumura, Yuko climate variability and change, ocean-atmosphere interaction, atmospheric teleconnection, paleoclimate and thermohaline circulation ocean and atmosphere
Olson, Hilary integration of biostratigraphic and paleoenvironmental data (foraminifera) with core and seismic data Gulf of Mexico, Faeroe Basin, San Joaquin Valley (CA), New Jersey Margin and Texas
Partin, Jud past hydrologic changes, stalagmite records Western Pacific Warm Pool, Guam
Quinn, Terry paleoclimateology, paleoceanography, sedimentary geology, and geochemistry Gulf of Mexico, Pacific
Schmidt, Britney Europa & terrestrial analogs, Solar System Icy Bodies Antarctica & Europa
Scott, Rob theory, modeling and observations of mesoscale ocean dynamics
Seif, Roustam Seismic (general elastic case) and electromagenetic modeling and migration, reverse time migration, rapid expansion method, applications of Fourier and Chebyshev expansions, massive parallel computations  
Sen, Mrinal seismic wave propagation including anisotropy, geophysical inverse problems, synthetic seismograms in heterogeneous media, seismology and inverse theory.
Shipley, Tom seismic reflection methods convergent margins
Snedden, John sequence and seismic stratigraphy, sedimentology, reservoir characterization, reservoir connectivity analysis, and unconventional resource evaluation Gulf of Mexico
Stoffa, Paul signal processing, acoustic and elastic wave propagation, modeling and inversion of geophysical data
Taylor, Frederick geochemistry of the annual density bands in living and fossil corals as inferences to late Quaternary paleoclimate western tropical Pacific (Western Pacific Warm Pool)
Tobis, Michael earth system modelling; statistical methods and uncertainty quantification; productivity in applied computation  
Van Avendonk, Harm deep crustal structure plate boundaries, Arctic
Wallace, Laura crustal deformation and neotectonics; geodetic data analysis subduction zones
Whiteaker, Tim Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in water resources engineering. Hydrologic, hydraulic, and water quality modeling Gulf of Mexico
Young, Duncan radar sounding of ice sheets and icy bodies, basal properties of ice sheets, influence of geology on ice sheet structure Antarctica

Emeritus Faculty

Backus, Milo Maxwell, Arthur Nakamura, Yosio  

Visiting Scientists

Damuth, Jed Wei Gan