8/2025: Kim promoted to Full Professor!
8/2025: Welcome Ashley Walsh, incoming MS student in Active Tectonics
7/2025: Congrats to Duncan Lord, he just completed his thesis on erosion rates at Mission Peak
8/2024: Kim and Betsy awarded DoD equipment grant to acquire mobile LiDAR acquisition equipment!
8/2024: Kim joins NSF as a rotator program director for GEO-EAR Tectonics program!
9/2024: Congrats to Simone Yaeger, she just completed her thesis on restraining step tectonics between the Calaveras and Hayward faults
8/2024: Welcome Darrian Ellis-Harden, Michae Musick and Pat O'Connor, incoming MS students in Active Tectonics
I am a field geologist and geochronologist interested in landscape evolution, earthquake geology, and tectonic reconstructions of dynamic processes in the upper crust. I am particularly interested in how crustal deformation at depth and changes in Earth’s climate are archived on Earth’s surface, as this information is critical for understanding regional climate and tectonics. My research implements a variety of field and laboratory tools aimed at characterizing and quantifying rates of active landscape processes. These tools include geochronology (specifically terrestrial cosmogenic radionuclides and U-series dating), structural and geomorphic mapping, the analysis of high-resolution topography data, GIS, Lidar acquisition and analysis and the application of mechanical models to simulate the behavior of the structures observed in the field.
Streetcar to Subduction is launched for AGU's Centennial in San Francisco, learn more here: https://www.agu.org/learn-and-develop/learn/streetcar2subduction/streetcar2subduction
If you are interested in pursuing graduate work in Active Tectonics, please contact me at kimberly.blisniuk@sjsu.edu. I'm always looking for motivated and enthusiastic students.
follow me on X : @activetectonics
SJSU Geology Department homepage: http://www.sjsu.edu/geology/index.html