Bio:

Troy Berkey is a geophysicist specializing in gravity and magnetic modeling to aid volcanic hazard forecasting, with expertise in geophysical survey design, numerical inversion techniques, and geologic mapping. He is a Ph.D. student at the University of South Florida, where he develops computational methods in Python and C to enhance potential field modeling, improve the characterization of subsurface volcanic structures, and advance the interpretation of volcanic systems. His research integrates gravity, magnetic, and LiDAR data to model fissure-fed dike systems, silicic intrusions, and lava tubes, contributing to both terrestrial hazard assessments and planetary exploration. He has conducted fieldwork across volcanic terrains in the western U.S., including Idaho, California, Utah, Arizona, and Oregon, applying geophysical techniques to investigate subsurface magmatic systems. He earned a B.S. in Geology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an M.S. in Geology (Geophysics/Volcanology) from the University of South Florida.​​​

Bio:

Dr. Rebecca Bussard is currently a post-doctoral scholar at Penn State University, where she is combining geodetic techniques including InSAR with deep learning to better extract deformation signal from her areas of interest. During her PhD in Earth Sciences at the University of Oregon, she studied both distributed and focused magmatic systems from the Cascades Volcanic Arc to the southwest US to New Zealand. Her work involves ranges from optical and microwave remote sensing of composite volcanoes to statistical analysis of distributed volcanic fields.​​​

Bio:

Mr. Michael Cline, registered professional geologist, is a principal geologist with RIZZO International, Inc. (RIZZO). He has more than 50 years of professional experience participating in and managing seismic, fault displacement, and volcanic hazard analyses for nuclear facilities, dam projects, and major population centers. This work has included probabilistic hazard analyses.  He has also performed independent technical reviews of geologic hazard investigations. He has technical expertise in remote sensing imagery interpretation, paleoseismology, geomorphology, structural geology, geologic mapping, economic geology, and high-resolution seismic surveys.  His management experience includes field offices, large-scale projects, major programs, and corporate operations. His geographical experience includes conducting investigations in North America, Central America, and South America; the Middle East; Europe; and northern Asia.  Notable projects include a probabilistic volcanic hazard analysis for a nuclear power site on the Eastern Snake River Plain (Idaho), Pantex Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (Texas), Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for the Krsko Nuclear Power Plant (Slovenia), Yucca Mountain Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Analysis and Consequence Analyses (Nevada), Tsruga Nuclear Power Plant fault hazard study (Japan), Earthquake and Volcanic Hazard study for the Valle Central (Costa Rica), and the Managua Metropolitan Fault Hazard Study (Nicaragua).

Bio:

Charles B. Connor, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Geosciences in USF’s College of Arts and Sciences and Partner in DMI, LLC. Over the course of his career, Dr. Connor has made significant breakthroughs in the fields of volcanology and natural hazards assessment which have contributed to national and international policies on preventing and mitigating natural disasters and advancing understanding and prediction of volcanoes and their effects. His work has had substantial impact on government policy worldwide on volcanic hazard assessment for nuclear facilities, especially nuclear power plants and high-level radioactive waste facilities. He developed one of the first algorithms for modeling volcanic ash fallout which is still in wide use across the field. He and colleagues also developed a highly efficient lava flow inundation code that can be used to make probabilistic hazard maps, and which has been successfully implemented worldwide for modeling lava flow hazards, in countries including New Zealand, Mexico, Colombia, the western U.S., Jordan, and Nicaragua, among others. He revealed the clustered nature of volcanism in volcanic arcs and how to quantify these patterns of volcanic activity. He and his research team also developed a new method for constraining the ages of the youngest volcanoes on Mars — a method helping to clarify the ages of volcanic features around our solar system. His extensive leadership includes serving on panels of the International Atomic Energy Agency which developed guidelines for evaluating potential volcanic hazards at nuclear energy sites worldwide; serving on an expert panel for the U.S. Department of Energy; and member of two National Academies’ committees. He holds B.A. and B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. from Dartmouth College.

Bio:

Kevin J Coppersmith, Ph.D., of Coppersmith Consulting, Inc., has more than 45 years of consulting experience, with primary emphasis in probabilistic hazard analyses (seismic, volcanic, tsunami, fault displacement, and related geohazards) for design and safety review of critical facilities within regulated environments. He has pioneered approaches to characterizing earth sciences data and their associated uncertainties for probabilistic seismic hazard analysis(es) (PSHAs) for a range of critical facility sites, including nuclear power plant sites, high-level waste repositories, dams, offshore platforms, pipelines, and bridges. Dr. Coppersmith was a member of the Senior Seismic Hazard Analysis Committee (SSHAC), which provided expert judgment methodology guidance to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). As a coprincipal investigator (PI), he has worked with NRC research staff reviewing lessons learned from the application of SSHAC Level 3 and 4 methodologies resulting in NUREG-2117 and was a coauthor of the SSHAC guidance in NUREG-2213 providing detailed implementation guidance for SSHAC studies of all Study Levels. Dr. Coppersmith was the Technical Facilitator/Integrator for the SSHAC Level 4 probabilistic volcanic hazard analysis (PVHA) conducted in 1996 for Yucca Mountain, as well as for the update to that study completed in 2008. He recently served as the Project Technical Integrator for the INL PVHA, which is the integrated multi-site volcanic hazard analysis to be used for safety assessments of several nuclear facilities. Dr. Coppersmith has participated in ~35 SSHAC hazard studies worldwide ranging from SSHAC Levels 1 through 4.

Bio:

​Hannah Dietterich is a Research Geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Volcano Observatory. Her work focuses on the physics of volcanic processes, remote sensing of volcanic activity, numerical modeling of volcanic hazards, and probabilistic volcanic hazard assessment. She integrates geologic mapping, physical volcanology, remote sensing, and numerical modeling with observations of ongoing eruptions to advance our understanding of volcanic hazards. 

Bio:

​Dr. Gregory P. De Pascale is currently an Associate Professor (Docent) of Structural Geology and Tectonics in the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences and member of the Science Institute at the University of Iceland. He was formerly an Assistant Professor of Geology at the University of Chile. He has a PhD in Geology from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand where he worked on New Zealand's plate boundary. Between academic postings, Dr. De Pascale has extensive experience in the private sector working on geological hazards including fault ruptures and seismic source characterisation and analysis of faults and fault systems globally. Although he has worked in the field on all 7 Continents, he is currently focusing on the Patagonian Andes of Chile and Argentina and Iceland's currently very active plate boundary. His students and he use classic field structural geology techniques mixed with modern and ever-improving tech including lidar and structure from motion (SfM) drone models in addition to subsurface and submarine geophysics, and Quaternary dating to explore, characterise, and model active faults and neotectonics and associated geohazards including earthquakes and seismic hazard, fault rupture, and the interaction between active tectonic structures and volcanism.

Bio:

Bill earned his BA in Geology at Franklin & Marshall College, his MS in Earth Science from Case Western Reserve University and his PhD from Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand, where he studied Mt Ruapehu, a large composite volcano of central North Island, and authored publications on its volcanic stratigraphy, petrology and hazards. At Idaho State University (ISU) he taught a slate of graduate and undergraduate courses including introductory geology, mineralogy, igneous & metamorphic petrology, regional geology, scientific photography and physical volcanology. In Idaho he pursued student-collaborative research on the Eastern Snake River Plain and the Challis volcanics of central Idaho, and co-authored publications from research in those areas. He edited Guidebook to the Geology of Central and Southern Idaho (Idaho Geological Survey Press) and co-authored Paleoseismology of Volcanic Environments, Chapter 4 of the monograph Paleoseismology, focusing on dike-propagation processes with illustrations from the eastern Snake River Plain. Bill served as a staff scientist at the Idaho National Laboratory, which offered many opportunities for applied research in volcanology, seismology, hydrology and safety analysis of nuclear facilities. Bill is Idaho Registered Professional Geologist #704. His consulting practice also includes research for commercial clients, including exploration models for volcanic-hosted ore deposits and bulk-commodity mining operations. He served on two SSHAC Level 4 volcanic hazard expert panels for the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada, the proposed U.S. high-level nuclear waste repository. He consulted for the Carbon Free Power Project, a proposed SMR at the INL, and co-authored its volcanic hazards assessment. Since the 1990s he has served on INL teams for a number of seismic- and volcanic hazards assessments. He designed and worked on a volcanic-hazard assessment of Taiwan. Most recently he was Lead of the Technical Integration Team of the SSHAC Level 3 PVHA for the INL. When he’s not engaged in geoscience, Bill enjoys woodworking, fly fishing, hiking and photography.

Bio:

Dr. Mitchell Hastings is the Director of Computational Geophysics at RIZZO International Incorporated. He joined RIZZO in 2022 after completing his doctorate on modeling volcanic and tectonic systems in the western United States (Idaho) and in Central America (Costa Rica and Nicaragua) and has since been involved on probabilistic volcanic and seismic hazard assessments. His technical expertise ranges from conducting geophysical field surveys, such as gravity and magnetic surveys, terrestrial radar interferometry, and geologic mapping, to numerical and statistical analysis of complex volcanotectonic systems. Projects of note include identifying and characterizing large silicic intrusions and their emplacement-related surface deformation in southeastern Idaho, quantifying slow-slip events and earthquake interactions in Costa Rica, probabilistic volcanic hazard assessment for a proposed nuclear facility on the Eastern Snake River Plain, and probabilistic seismic hazard assessment for the Krško Nuclear Power Plant in Slovenia.
 

Bio:

​Brittain’s 40-year-career has focused on applying scientific research to solve real-world hazard and risk problems, and on developing fundamental insights on how hazardous phenomena work. In addition to having extensive experience in technical, public, and policy communication, he has conducted many field investigations at quiet and grumpy volcanoes around the world. For the last seven years of pseudo-retirement, he has continued to consult on variety of interesting volcanic hazard issues at nuclear installations around the world. Before retirement, he served as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Senior Advisor for Repository Science. In that role, he helped the NRC make risk-informed technical, regulatory, and policy decisions on geoscience safety issues at all U.S. nuclear facilities, including the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. He also collaborated with the International Atomic Energy Agency to develop and apply regulatory and technical guidance for conducting volcanic hazard assessments, and other nuclear safety issues. Prior to joining the NRC, he was a Principal Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, where he directed scientific research and detailed risk assessments for engineered facilities. Early on, he worked extensively in the geothermal industry, including a stint with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, and was a consultant for various natural resource companies while working on his degrees. He has earned M.S. (1984) and Ph.D. (1991) degrees in geology from Oregon State University.

Bio: 

Dr. Shannon Kobs Nawotniak (BS Geology Michigan Technological University, PhD Geology University at Buffalo) is a professor of volcanology at Idaho State University. Her work focuses on physical volcanology with emphasis areas in planetary analogs and science operations for exploration. She served as a member of the Idaho National Laboratory's Probabilistic Volcanic Hazard Assessment (PVHA) Technical Integration team.

Bio:

​Einat Lev is a volcanologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Dr. Lev got her PhD in Geophysics from MIT in 2009. Dr. Lev leads the Physical Volcanology group at LDEO which strives to improve our understanding of volcanic eruptions. Her team uses numerical modeling, analog lab experiments, and field observations at active volcanoes and eruptions to better understand how lava and magma move inside and outside volcanoes.

Bio:

​Dr. Charles W. Mandeville is currently a research geologist for the Alaska Volcano Observatory of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) where he is now working on a volcano caused tsunamis hazard assessment for active Alaskan volcanoes. Dr. Mandeville served as the Program Coordinator (head) of the USGS Volcano Hazards Program for over ten years and as the deputy program head for 2.5 years.  Prior to his service at USGS, he was a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History for more than 13 years. He is a trained physical volcanologist and geochemist, and has conducted volcano research for the National Science Foundation at numerous sites throughout his career, including Krakatau and Galunggung volcanoes in Indonesia, Mount St. Helens in Washington, Crater Lake in Oregon, and Augustine Volcano in Alaska. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Rhode Island (URI), a master’s degree in geology from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in oceanography from the URI Graduate School of Oceanography.  In his years as Program Coordinator for the USGS, he was directly involved with efforts to establish a National Volcano Early Warning System for all active volcanoes in the United States and assisted in the management of the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (a partnership between the USGS and USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance) which assists developing countries during times of volcanic crises.

Bio:

​Emily Montgomery-Brown is a research geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Cascades Volcano Observatory specializing in volcano geodesy. She analyzes ground- and satellite-based data to understand how magma moves underground and how volcanoes change their shape before, during and after eruptions.  She holds a BSc in Geology from New Mexico Tech with a minor in Math, and MS and PhD degrees in Geophysics from Stanford University.  Her research involves exploring volcanic deformation using time-series analysis and numerical models that integrate multidisciplinary data including geodetic (GNSS, tiltmeters, strainmeters, InSAR), seismic, hydrological, and geological information.  She has continued to extensively study eruptions, intrusions, and flank deformation at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii.  Additional research projects include: finite element models of caldera deformation at Long Valley, shallow vent eruptions at Mt. Erebus, dike intrusion probabilities derived from exhumed volcanic centers, dynamics of coinciding flank deformation and eruptions at Mt. Etna, ongoing long-term deformation of the Three Sisters volcanic complex, and deformation processes at other Cascade volcanoes including Mt. St. Helens and Lassen. She was a visiting researcher at the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, and former co-chair of the joint IUGG IAVCEI/IAG Volcano Geodesy Commission. Her work directly contributes to the USGS's mission to enhance public safety through monitoring and assessing volcanic hazards, and delivering forecasts, warnings and information about volcanic hazards.

Bio:

​Raphaël Paris is a geologist working at Laboratoire Magmas & Volcans (CNRS-UCA, Clermont-Ferrand, France), with a 25-years’ experience of research on tsunami deposits, volcanic tsunamis, and landslide tsunamis. Raphaël has developed an integrated approach to the volcanic tsunami hazard, combining information from tsunami deposits with laboratory experiments and numerical modelling. This approach was applied to natural cases studies of tsunamigenic eruptions in the Canary Islands, the Mediterranean (Santorini, Kolumbo) and Indonesia (Krakatau, Tambora).

Bio: 

Mike Poland is a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey specializing in volcano geodesy, particularly using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and microgravity.  He completed his BS at the University of California at Davis in 1997 and his PhD at Arizona State University in 2001.  From 2002 to 2005, he worked at the Cascades Volcano Observatory to implement InSAR for monitoring volcanoes in the USA.  During 2005-2015, he was the research geodesist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, where he studied magma supply and storage at Kīlauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes.  In 2015 he returned to the Cascades Volcano Observatory to conduct InSAR and microgravity studies, and in 2017 he became the Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.  While continuing to conduct volcano geodesy research in the Cascades, Hawaii, and Yellowstone, Mike also devotes significant energy to public communication, particularly about the Yellowstone magmatic system.

Bio: 

Glenn Thompson is a volcano seismologist specializing in real-time monitoring techniques. He first worked at the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) in 1996 during the height of the volcanic crisis, where he realized that enhanced volcano-seismic monitoring could better inform real-time hazard assessments and improve public safety. This experience fueled his commitment to developing cutting-edge monitoring tools to mitigate volcanic hazards. While completing his PhD, he worked in the IT industry, which led to a postdoc at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO), where he developed core web-based seismic monitoring tools still in use today. From 2000 to 2003, he returned to Montserrat as Seismic Network Manager, working with the MVO team to rebuild the seismic monitoring program, upgrade data acquisition, analysis, and alarm systems, and pioneer seismic amplitude-source location (ASL) techniques for pyroclastic flows. He also recovered data from 500+ orphaned media, helping to create one of the most comprehensive eruption datasets in the world. From 2006 to 2013, he worked at AVO again, contributing to several volcano crises. Since 2013, he has been based at the University of South Florida, mentoring the next generation of observatory specialists. In 2020, he led a comprehensive review of the monitoring of Whakaari volcano on behalf of the New Zealand government, following the fatal eruption on December 9, 2019. More recently, he has been working with the USGS VDAP to restore legacy seismic data from volcanic crises at Pinatubo, Nevado del Ruiz, and Popocatépetl, ensuring these invaluable datasets can be analyzed with modern techniques and yield new discoveries.

Bio: 

Jenise Thompson is a Geologist in the External Hazards Center of Expertise within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  In this capacity, she is responsible for the siting reviews of geologic and volcanic hazard for numerous NRC-regulated facilities, including new reactor applications and consolidated interim storage facilities.  Ms. Thompson is also actively involved in revising existing guidance for siting reviews and developing new guidance based on emergent needs. Ms. Thompson is the technical lead for the development and revision of Regulatory Guide 4.26, “Volcanic Hazards Assessment for Proposed Nuclear Power Reactor Sites” and is the staff lead for the consideration of new guidance on a graded approach to site characterization for new reactor applications. She is also the NRC representative and chair of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) working group developing ANS 2.34, “Characterization and Probabilistic Analysis of Volcanic Hazards.”

Bio: 

Greg Valentine is Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences at the University at Buffalo, where for the past sixteen years he has conducted research on: (1) Basaltic volcanic fields in the American Southwest and in France; (2) Phreatomagmatic processes based on field-scale experiments, geologic studies, and numerical modeling; and (3) General explosive volcanic processes such as eruption columns, pyroclastic currents, and their deposits in the United States and Italy.  These themes continue with his current projects on deposits of large-volume caldera-related pyroclastic flows, basaltic volcanism in Utah, and multiphase numerical modeling of pyroclastic currents.   Valentine was a technical staff member and group leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory for twenty years prior to his appointment at Buffalo.  There he focused on a range of geoscience problems including subsurface flow and contaminant transport, urban systems, nuclear weapons effects, volcanic eruption modeling,  and volcanic risk for the proposed Yucca Mountain radioactive waste repository.  He earned his B.S. at New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, and Ph.D. at University of California-Santa Barbara.

Bio: 

Dr. Waythomas is a geologist with the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage Alaska. He primarily works on volcano hazard assessments, geologic mapping of volcanoes and the radiocarbon chronology of eruptive events. He has a background in Quaternary geology, geomorphology, and hydrology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 1990 and then was a post-doctoral fellow on a National Research Council-USGS project in Denver Colorado. In 1992 he moved to Anchorage and soon after joined the Alaska Volcano Observatory as a staff geologist. An ongoing subject of study are the hazards associated with volcanically initiated tsunamis.