Academic
I study why some volcanoes erupt with almost no warning while others swell for decades without erupting, and how to turn monitoring data into better eruption forecasts.
I am a volcano geophysicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where I completed my Ph.D. research with Prof. Patricia M. Gregg. I combine satellite radar (InSAR), GPS, earthquake records, finite-element models, and ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) data assimilation to understand the magma systems of Okmok, Westdahl, and Veniaminof volcanoes in Alaska's Aleutian arc. My study of 'stealthy' eruptions at Veniaminof was covered by more than 30 news outlets worldwide.
阅读中文版
2025
Veniaminof erupts often, yet most of its recent eruptions arrived with little or no warning. Using computer models of a magma reservoir, this study shows how a volcano can reach the breaking point while staying almost silent to monitoring instruments.
Read project
2026
Westdahl Volcano has been slowly swelling for more than 30 years since its 1991–1992 eruption, yet it has not erupted again. This project uses 3D computer models checked against GPS and satellite data to explain why, and to ask how close it may be to erupting.
Read project
2026
Three Alaskan volcanoes with similar settings behave very differently: Okmok's large 2008 eruption came with only brief warning, Westdahl has swelled for decades without erupting, and Veniaminof erupts often with almost no warning. This study models all three in one framework to explain why.
Read projectLi, Y., Gregg, P. M., Lu, Z., & Wang, J.
Frontiers in Earth Science, 13:1535083 (2025)
Why a frequently erupting Alaskan volcano gives almost no warning. Covered by 30+ news outlets; Altmetric score in the top 1% of research outputs.
McKee, K. F., Cauley, C., Rojas-Kolomiets, E., Li, Y., Hosseini, B., Daly, K., Ward, A., Roman, D. C., Wieser, P. E., Wallace, P. J., Fischer, T. P., Power, J. A., Plank, T., & Abers, G. A.
Bulletin of Volcanology, 88:115 (2026)
Deep earthquakes beneath Alaskan volcanoes occur at depths where gases come out of solution in magma.
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