Research Interests

I am interested in all aspects of the earthquake rupture process. For example, how earthquakes start and grow, what factors govern the size and location of slip, how one earthquake affects another. I have studied earthquakes over a wide range of magnitudes and frequencies in many tectonic environments. I worked in the Aegean, Southern California and New Zealand before coming to Boston. In particular I have focused on earthquake scaling and nucleation. I have also worked on attenuation and site effects. My aim is to understand the factors controlling seismic slip by studying earthquakes under a wide range of conditions (for example, on the San Andreas System, in subduction zones, and in the oceans). I am also using the relatively controlled environment of induced seismicity to understand the triggering of tectonic earthquakes. 

 

Since 2021, with Annemarie Baltay (USGS) I have been leading a community collaboration to improve estimates of earthquake source parameters, focusing initially on spectral stress drop. The work is sponsored primarily by the USGS and SCEC, and is ongoing. The results of the first stage are published in the June 2025 Special Issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America  https://doi.org/10.1785/0120250055