First career with US Geological Survey's Volcano Hazards Team and as Affiliate Professor, Univ of Washington.
Past Chairman, World Organization of Volcano Observatories
Publications on various aspects of the eruptive history, unrest, and modern eruptions of volcanoes, especially in the Philippines and Indonesia. Non-research contributions, too, including forecasting tools, an educational video, community organizing, and other work that helps folks live more safely with volcanoes -- as honored recently by the Krafft Medal.
For a sampling of research on the giant 1991 eruption of Pinatubo Volcano in the Philippines, please see http://pubs.usgs.gov/pinatubo. For a (slightly dated) review of unrest at large caldera volcanoes, please see http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/usgspubs/b/b1855. For information on WOVOdat, the fledgling database of worldwide volcanic unrest, please see www.wovo.org/wovodat1.html. |
I'll be helping to build the volcanology research group here at NTU, with close links to researchers and practitioners in neighboring volcanic countries. Our main focus will be eruption forecasting, and understanding magmatic plumbing and processes toward that goal. We'll be developing new tools for forecasting -- new research insights, new equipment, and WOVOdat, a new database of worldwide volcanic unrest among them. Since volcano research needs to start on real volcanoes, and Singapore doesn't have any, we plan "laboratory volcano" projects in the Philippines and Indonesia that will decipher eruptive history and current/future unrest, and also serve as a test ground for new tools. My own research will emphasize the ways by which magma degasses ("loses its fizz"), ways in which magma interacts with groundwater, and "epidemiological" mining of WOVOdat.
Our work needs small, low-power, inexpensive, and unobtrusive (hard for passerbys to see) power and radio telemetry for remote stations on volcanoes. We need innovative new ways to "see" stress conditions, magmatic gas pressures, and groundwater pore pressures inside volcanoes, and more robust, cheaper ways for continuous, multi-species volcanic gas monitoring. And we need to improve real-time detection and characterization of ash clouds that threaten aviation, and fragility curves of damage to aircraft from various concentrations and exposure to ash.
The closeness to nature, camaraderie, and both intellectual and physical challenges of working on volcanoes are infectious! Join us! I welcome students and collaborators from various disciplines who are interested to apply their insights to problems of volcano monitoring, volcanic behavior, and risk mitigation. Please contact me with your volcano questions and interests! |