Bryant Chow

• Oct. 1, 2023 — Official start of my faculty position at UAF!
• Aug. 1, 2023 — I am happy to announce that I have accepted an Assistant Professorship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, as a part of the Geophysical Institute, the Department of Geosciences within the College of Natural Science and Mathematics, and the Wilson Alaska Technical Center.

I'm a seismologist, which means I spend my days looking at wiggles on a screen. These wiggles correspond to waves bouncing through the Earth or traveling along its surface, generated by things like earthquakes, explosions, or ocean waves.

Seismologists record these wiggles with high-precision instruments called seismometers. Careful analysis of the wiggles can inform us about what caused them (sources), and what they traveled through (structure).

I am particularly interested in using seismology to: understand Earth structure, characterize unique sources, get out in the field, and provide resources to make science more accessible to all.

In my free time, you might find me outside on rocks, ice, snow, and rivers.

My current research interests lie in the field of seismic imaging (specifically, adjoint tomography), which means I use seismic waves and supercomputers to probe the structure of the Earth (think MRI or CT scans).

In adjoint tomography, we create computer-generated wiggles with simulations through models of the Earth (or a part of the Earth). By systematically changing the model, we try to line up the simulated wiggles with the real wiggles, giving us a better idea about the ground beneath our feet. Neat!

To perform my research, I develop, maintain, and rely on open source software. I am a big proponent of openly available data and software to make science more transparent, accessible and reproducible.

Have a look at my research page for more details on things I work on. Prospective students interested in these topics are welcome to check out the students page for information on open opportunities.



In a nutshell — [left] a computer simulation of seismic waves radiating away from an earthquake (black star), being recorded by a seismometer (white triangle); [right] vertical ground motion of the actual earthquake recording (black), and the simulated shaking (red). Note that time is sped up.