People

Currently, our lab has three active PhD students and two former students who are working as research associates. We also have an undergraduate researcher. We are always interested in hearing from potential students!

Current Members

Durga Acharya

I am a graduate student in the Crustal Deformation group. I am working on interseismic locking models for the Himalaya thrust. Our estimates of interseismic locking have simple physical constraints that control the spatial distriubition of locking and interseismic creep. We also utilize viscoelastic cycle models that account for time-dependent viscous flow in the mantle and in the lower crust under Tibet.

Elizabeth Sherrill

I am a former graduate student and postdoc in the Crustal Deformation group. I am currently a postdoc at GEOMAR, Germany. I am interested in using different geophysical methods to investigate the spectrum of slip behaviors observed at subduction zones. I am currently developing a probabilistic inversion of interseismic surface velocities for the boundaries of the fully and partly coupled regions of the megathrust faults at Nankai and Cascadia subduction zones.

Eric Burton

I got my MS degree from IU and now I work as a visiting research associate in the Crustal Deformation group. I am working models of creep front propagation and interseismic creep rate accelerations in Northern Japan where we observed a decadal creep acceleration event prior to the 2011 M9 Tohoku-oki earthquake.

Ping Chen (Evan) Chiang

I am a PhD student in the Crustal Deformation group. I am working on reconciling long-term and present-day deformation in Taiwan through modelign and inversions of geodetic data and other measures of longer term uplift. This work is examining mountain building processes from geologic, to geomorphic, to present-day time scales.

Jake Dorsett

After obtaining my MS degree from IU in 2020, I worked in the oil and gas industry for a few years. I am now back, working in the Crustal Deformation group as a research associate. I am currently focusing on incorporating geodetic observations with mechanical models to understand postseismic deformation associated with the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake in southern California.

Kaj Johnson

I am a geophysicist who works primarily with geodetic data and numerical and analytical modeling to investigate active deformation of the lithosphere. In particular, I study how deformation within plate boundary zones is accommodated by faulting and folding in the crust and viscous flow in the lower crust and upper mantle.

Nicolás Castro-Perdomo

I am a PhD candidate working on active tectonics and crustal deformation modeling. My work integrates geodetic data with numerical models to investigate how surface deformation is accommodated along faults and through distributed off-fault processes in the Earth’s crust.