Chelsea is the Principal Investigator (PI) at UTK Tectonics. Her research seeks to understand how crustal, surface, and tectonic processes deform & shape Earth’s continents. Current projects combine fieldwork, balanced cross section construction,  geo-/thermochronology & other datasets, and numerical modeling to address a variety of questions (see Research Approach & Projects pages for more details).

Before joining UTK in Fall 2024, she held appointments as an Assistant Professor at Denison University, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Connecticut, and NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. 

When she's not on campus, you can find her outside (climbing, hiking) or exploring some of the food, art, & live music around town.

Megan's research project is focused on reconstructing the timing & magnitude of shortening, exhumation, and rock cooling in the Argentine Precordillera, a mountain range that may be connected to major deeply-rooted faults linked to intense seismic activity. Megan helped prepare samples for apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology analyses and interpreted the data using thermal history models.

When she isn't in the lab, we can find Megan on the pickle ball courts, traveling to visit friends & family, or exploring the area around Denison campus.

Holly's research used published maps and aerial imagery to improve the resolution of structural mapping in the area of the Argentine Precordillera targeted for thermochronology analyses. In addition to mapping structural and stratigraphic contacts in Google Earth, Holly contributed to sample preparation for apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronology analyses and thermal history modeling.

Outside of school and work, Holly plays rugby and sings in the Denison choir.

Matt has been working in the Tectonics group since the very beginning! He uses hydrogen stable isotope analyses of volcanic glass to unravel the effects of climatic, topographic, &/or tectonic processes on the stable isotope records preserved within high vs. low-elevation sedimentary basins in the Argentine Andes.

When he isn't working or doing research, Matt enjoys road tripping, listening to Noah Kahan, and playing baseball on Denison's club team.

Jess's original research project (summer '23) integrated geologic mapping, seismic data, and thermochronology analyses to understand the extent to which syn- vs. post-tectonic processes influenced the structural, thermal, and topographic history of the Crazy Mountains in southwest Montana. She then used these skills to contribute to Tectonics group fieldwork in the Argentine Andes and related thermochronology sample preparation.

Outside the lab, Jess enjoys being active and listening to music (favorites include the 1975 and Taylor Swift).

Sam's research project used thermal history modeling of apatite (U-Th)/He and fission track thermochronology data to explore the role of magmatism vs. burial heating and erosional exhumation on the thermal history of the Crazy Mountains. He also helped prepare samples for apatite and zircon (U-Th)/He thermochronology analyses.

Off campus, Sam is an avid traveler and skier, and spends many of his semester breaks exploring Colorado.

Eric's research was facilitated by the Research Traineeship Experience (RTX) at the University of Texas at Austin. His project – which was conducted remotely, due to COVID-era travel restrictions – involved developing a Jupyter Notebook for quickly and efficiently visualizing thermochronology data.

Eric is a former college athlete (football at Texas Tech)!

Paola's research for her licenciatura thesis (equivalent to a B.S. senior thesis in the U.S.) focused on the petrophysical characteristics of the Permian-Triassic Choiyoi Group silicic magmatic province in the Argentine Frontal Cordillera (San Juan, Argentina). She conducted fieldwork to document the Choiyoi Group in outcrop exposures, petrophysical analyses to facilitate correlations with seismic data, and contributed several geochronology dates (zircon U-Pb) to refine the timing of igneous emplacement.

Paola now works as a mining geologist and enjoys spending time with her family in San Juan.