I am Associate Professor of Geophysics at the Department of Geological Sciences. This year I also have a position as a Visiting Associate at the Caltech Seismological Laboratory. My main research interests are in the field of observational seismology: learning about the Earth’s structure and earthquake source processes from records of ground motion.

   The most important recent development is the department’s new MSc program, that just started this Fall. We are accepting applications for Fall 2013, so contact me if you are interesting in talking about opportunities for an MSc project in seismology/geophysics or if you would just like to take a graduate class or two in Seismology or Shallow Subsurface Geophysics.

   This summer we conducted a shared Geology/Environmental Biology field experience on the Big Island of Hawaii. We installed several seismometers and visited many sites of interest around the island. You can take a look at a slideshow of this year’s pictures or a selection of the many pictures we took when we were in Hawaii last year.

   I have developed several new classes at Cal Poly Pomona, some of which are not in the Cal Poly Pomona catalog yet: “Introduction to Global Geophysics”, “Shallow Subsurface Geophysics”, “Introduction to Seismology, Earthquakes and Earth Structure” and “Living in Earthquake Country”. The main target audience for these classes are students in Geology, Physics and Engineering, but if you have a different major you are more than welcome to register! Other classes I teach include: Introduction to Astronomy, Natural Disasters, Advanced Engineering Geology and Quantitative Applications for Earth Scientists. I will also soon teach Advanced Seismology and Advanced Shallow Subsurface Geophysics, as well as Planetary Science, as part of our new MSc program.

   Because Geophysics is a new program at Cal Poly, I have put together some information on what Geophysics is all about (with a pretty obvious bias towards my own field of seismology). I have also created a set of Geophysics student info pages with job and internship opportunities, workshops and conferences and classes I would recommend to get a strong background in Geophysics (especially if you are considering grad school). If you are interested in a project in seismology or geophysics as your senior thesis research, you can check out my research page and find suggestions for specific senior thesis topics on the student info pages.

   My own education in geophysics started in the Netherlands, where I received my Master's degree in Geophysics from the University of Utrecht.  I then moved to the much more seismically active (and sunnier) Los Angeles area and obtained my PhD in Geophysics from Caltech. I continued to work at the Seismological Laboratory as a researcher for several years, with the Southern California Seismic Network. Then I became a Research Scientist at the Institute of Crustal Studies at UCSB in 2004, while teaching part-time at Cal Poly. Now I look forward to pursuing my teaching and research interests here in the Geological Sciences Department for many years to come!