Welcome New Graduate Students

Located primarily in the Seismological Laboratory, the Geophysics Option in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences provides unique opportunities for graduate students to excel in academics and engage in cutting-edge research. The Seismo Lab welcomes Jorge Castellenos, Jack Muir, and Minyan Zhong.

Jorge received his B.S. degree in Geophysical Engineering at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon. In 2015, he received a M.S. in Earth Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he worked with large seismic array datasets to characterize subduction zone dynamics underneath Mexico. His main research interests are geodesy, seismic wave propagation and the use of inverse theory to determine Earth structure. When asked why he chose Caltech, Jorge says, "Caltech provides me the opportunity to explore freely the different branches of Earth Science while working with the World leading researchers in these fields."

Jack received a Bachelor of Philosophy with honors in physics from the Australian National University in 2014. He has done internships in condensed matter physics, astrophysics, and geophysics. Jack has worked on projects involving Bayesian inference applications to the differential rotation of Earth's inner core and Joint inversion of lowermost mantle P-wave velocity and core-mantle boundary topography. His research interests include inverse problem methods, bayesian statistics, ambient noise correlations and deep mantle structure. For Jack, "Caltech is an exciting place to work due to the large and diverse faculty and student body, which provides a wealth of experience on which to draw."

Minyan received his B.S. from Peking University (Beijing, China) in 2015, double-majoring in Geophysics and Software Engineering. During his undergraduate studies, he worked on problems related to surface wave tomography, in order to retrieve surface-wave phase velocity across seismic arrays. He is interested in ambient seismic noise, development of Geophysical methods, and EQ physics related to super shear rupture. When asked why he chose Caltech, Minyan says, "There are many world-class faculty here, working in different subfields of geophysics, and the atmosphere of collaboration here is really great."