Our research team benefits from the exchange of ideas and information from collaborators around the world. Graduate and Undergraduate students use analytical and numerical models to solve problems of earthquake rupture and comparisons with time-averaged deformation, fault creep and geomechanics and fluid injection and extraction, fault-magma interaction, magma and volatile generation and migration, plate rheology, and their implications to society. Applied research links to geothermal energy exploration and exploitation and geohazards. Photos include Dr Carolina Hurtado-Pulido (January 2025), Martin Musila and co-advisor Paul Bedrosian (?August 2025), Eddie Arzabala, Garrett Sullivan, Cirus Kalugana, Albert Kyambikwa, with visiting scientist Billy Kachingwe; Samuel Mwangi (U Nairobi), Emma Knight receiving 2025 Chair’s Award; Emily Kraus, and Garrett in Kigali; Recent grad Sarah Jaye Oliva (COVID delayed graduation); collaborator Dr Lydia Olaka (Tech Univ Kenya) and recent graduate from SE Kenya Univ Mercy Lodeya; former undergrads Sam Hilburn, Sophie Aber, and colleague Kevin Reece,
Postgraduate Students (1990- 2022)
Kyambikwa, Albert – PhD, in progress
Kalugana, Cirus, PhD, in progress
Arzabala, Eduardo, PhD, in progress
Musila, Martin, expected mid-2025, Geophysical imaging of crustal structure in magmatic regions, and geothermal assessments.
D Carolina Hurtado-Pulido, Carolina, PhD, 2025, Quantifying contributions to vertical crustal movements in southern Louisiana using space-based geodesy.
Sisay Alemeyahu – PhD (co-advisor) University of Addis Ababa, 2024.
Jean Paul Hagumimana, MSc candidate EAIFR and Tulane grad student.
Garrett Sullivan, MSc candidate. Analyses of fault kinematics and linkage between three en echelon rift sectors in the Turkana Depression.
Sarah Jaye Oliva, PhD 2020. ICTP Diploma 2015. ** GeoPRISMS Poster Presentation Honorable Mention, AGU 2016. Vokes Fellowship, Tulane University. Now at University of Victoria, BC.
New Orleans Science and Technology High School Interns
- Jeysi Guillen – 2019
- Makiyah Cormick – 2018
- Chaz Clark -2017
- Sidney Pierre – 2017
Undergraduate Research Students and Research Assistants
Zack Herbst – REU student, Lunar and Martian mining, summer 2025
Zach Hom – REU student, summer 2024; Senior thesis, Geothermal prospectivity of NW Louisiana and E Texas basins.
Emma Knight – Senior thesis, 2025. Kinematics of faults in the Kivu rift, East Africa.
Sophie Aber – Tulane. Research assistant. Episodes of dike-assisted rifting in 2019 within the northern Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand. Author of Cascading earthquake swarms in the northern Taupo volcanic zone, New Zealand, 2025, G-Cubed
Hayden Holcomb – Eastern Levant region synthetic aperture sonar image analyses for AI.
Emily Kraus – Tulane. Seismicity patterns in East Africa and NW Louisiana
Owen Williamson – Tulane. Stress inversion of earthquake source mechanisms
Josie James-Le – Tulane. Statistical analyses of earthquakes from Bay of Plenty, New Zealand.
Samantha Hilburn – Tulane. Senior Honors thesis, 2021. SKS-splitting patterns, Gulf of Mexico passive margin, and implications for lithospheric evolution.
Samia Sabir – Tulane. Waveform cross-correlation and precise relocation
Mario Z Ruiz – Universidad de La Plata, Argentina – David Simpson international REU award. Time-varying ambient noise tomography, nefore, during, and after Sierra Negra volcanic eruption
Derrick Murekezi – (U of Rochester) Kinematics of rifting in northern Taupo volcanic line REU 2018
Carrie Leibensperger – Tulane. Earthquakes in the Whakatane graben, New Zealand