Whats New?

🌋 Got featured by Univeristy of Memphis Graduate School. Read here: feature 2025 

🌋 I have started working as a Graduate Research Intern at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Summer 2025.

🌋 Read our new paper: A Community Seismic Network for the Early Detection of Seismic Activity Close to Active Volcanoes in Western El Salvador link 

🌋 I have been selected for an NSF Research Internship at Verisk/AIR Worldwide in Boston in the Summer of 2024! 

🌋 Earthquake Physics Group at CERI helped build the Community Raspberry Shake Network Around Santa Ana Volcano in El Salvador read our blog here

Research Updates

1. Uncertainty in Background Seismicity Rate Estimation

Understanding temporal changes in background seismicity rate is essential for seismic hazard assessment. Various declustering methods, e.g.,Reasenberg 1985, window method based on Gardner-Knopoff 1974, Gamma distribution fit, Nearest Neighbor approach by Zaliapin and Ben-Zion 2013 have been developed to separate background seismicity from clustered events. However, estimating the temporal changes in the background seismicity rate is challenging due to catalog incompleteness, location uncertainties, observational biases, as well as the choice of the declustering technique to separate aftershock clusters. In this study, we are trying to understand the uncertainty of estimating the temporal changes in background seismicity rate by analyzing real and ETAS-based synthetic catalogs for Hawaii.

2. Seismicity classification & source parameter estimation of Hawaiian and Aleutian Island volcano 

I am working on the Volcano seismicity of Hawaiian and Auletian Island Volcanoes and trying to classify different types of volcano seismicity, e.g., Volcano Tectonic, Long Period, and Tremors, using the spectral and temporal features of the seismic waveforms. Classification using standard and machine learning algorithms are commonly based on features selected in the time and frequency domain. Such features include, for example, dominant frequency band, power spectral density, energy ratios, duration, peak amplitude, and rate of amplitude decay.

Here, we analyze seismicity associated with major eruptive phases of the Kilauea volcano, Hawaii, and Okmok volcano and Akutan volcano, Alaska. Cyclical pressure variation due to recurring inflation and deflation during caldera collapse is likely to influence the associated seismicity. We are motivated to understand how the caldera collapse sequence and the eruption phases influenced the types of seismic events.

3.  Real-Time Monitoring of Santa Ana Volcano Seismicity, El Salvador

I am involved in another project for Volcano Seismicity analysis in Santa Ana volcano, El Salvador. Earthquake Physics Group, led by Dr. Thomas Goebel installed seismometers in Santa Ana volcano in El Salvador as a part of CERI outreach program by collaborating with a few students and faculties from University of El Salvador in Fall 2023. Now we are creating a seismicity catalog for El Salvador. I am responsible for detecting earthquakes from continuous real time waveforms, picking the phases and contributing to the catalog. I am also working on velocity inversion and event location from the detected earthquake catalog for Santa Ana. 

Check out this blog about our seismicity monitoring in Santa Ana, El Salvador

Community Seismic Network in Santa Ana volcano, El Salvador 

Check out the interactive map of our seismicity network in El Salvador: link 

4. Seismicity of Central United States

I also helped out on a project for dynamically triggered earthquakes and their relation to fluid injection in the Central United States. We tried to identify the dynamically triggered events in the New Madrid Seismic Zone and understand how dynamic triggering behaves along NMSZ compared to the dynamically triggered seismicity of Oklahoma. My responsibility for this project was to help out with the waveform analysis for detecting triggered events by large earthquakes, magnitude >= 7Mw. The preliminary research updates were presented at AGU Fall Meeting 2023. AGU 2023 Presentation 

I have a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Disaster Science and Management. Previously, I worked on hazard assessment and risk analysis. 

Past Activities:

• Presented at SCEC 2024 in Palm Spring, CA 

• Presented my preliminary research outputs on Volcano Seismicity Classification at AGU Fall Meeting 2023, San Francisco, CA. You can check out my poster here: AGU Fall 2023 Poster 

• I have received the University of Memphis travel award to present my research on volcano seismicity at AGU in San Francisco in December 2023 

Summer 2024 Internship:

During my internship, I was involved in Hawaii Hazard Modelling study. I worked on estimating the background seismicity rate, by doing catalog declustering. My study also involved comparing the performance of different declustering techniques (e.g., Nearest Neighbor, Reasenberg 1985) on available historical catalogs of Hawaii. Now I am trying to understand the performance of different declustering techniques on synthetic catalogs.

Fun Field Works:

• Southern San Andreas Fault Section 2023, California

• New Madrid Fault 2023,Memphis, TN 

• Springerville Volcanic Field 2022, Arizona