Dr. Patricia Persaud


Malibu Coastline

In stages the impossible becomes possible.
- T Krishnamacharya

Dr. Patricia Persaud

Associate Professor
Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona

2020-21 Edward, Frances, and Shirley B. Daniels Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University

1040 E. 4th Street
Tucson, AZ 85721
Phone: (520) 621-4890
Email: ppersaud@arizona.edu
Office: Gould-Simpson 556
Lab: Gould-Simpson 546

M.S. and Ph.D. Geophysics, California Institute of Technology
B.S. Geophysics, University of Houston, Summa cum laude

Selected Awards/Honors

2023 & 24 Radcliffe Summer Fellow at Harvard University
2022 Rising Faculty Research Award LSU
2021 National Science Foundation CAREER Award
2020-21 Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University
2020 Excellence and Innovation Award LSU
2019 Outstanding Alumni Award, University of Houston
2016 Teaching Enhancement Fund Award LSU

Service

2023 - Geological Society of America Councilor
2023 - Statewide California Earthquake Cntr. MA Leader

ACE4 Data Analytics Center: https://analytics-center.lsu.edu


NEWS:






Link to April 2022 CSEG Ask Me Anything webinar on Myanmar Earthquake Project.

Visit our Myanmar Universities Seismic Experiment project page at SEG Geoscientists Without Borders.

June, 2021 - Co-organizing NSF workshop “Extensional Processes across Tectonic Settings and Timescales” that will bring together scientists to plan for a new Initiative for community-driven research coordination focusing on rifts, rifted margins, and spreading ridges.

Jan 2021 - Welcome incoming graduate students Weston Charles and Joses Omojola!

Dec 10, 2020 - Co-hosting AGU Town Hall - Next Steps to Understand Extension of the Lithosphere!

Oct 14, 2020 - Rasheed Ajala is giving a USGS Earthquake Science seminar on "Active source tomography in Salton Trough: Geologic insights and application to ground motion predictions". Click here to view online.

Oct 2020 - Undergraduate students, Kaylee Cornelius, Lucia Lin and Valeria Vela from Harvard are doing research on earthquake detection with Machine Learning!

Oct 1, 2020 - Kick-off meeting for the FURTHER project (The role of FlUids in the pReparaTory pHase of EaRthquakes in Southern Apennines), a collaboration with INGV, Rome and PI-Francesca Di Luccio.

Sept 1, 2020 - PhD student, Rasheed Ajala is presenting at the SCEC CVM workshop on "UCVM development and low-frequency validation of hybrid Earth models near the southern San Andreas fault".

Summer-Fall 2020 - Patricia Persaud is a SCEC SOURCES mentor in the Supported Opportunities for Undergraduates and Researchers to Collaborate on Earthquake Science program. Brian Aguilar and Karlee Rivera are doing research on the BASIN project!

July 23, 2020 - Patricia Persaud presents for the SEG Geoscientists Without Borders Trustees Association on "The MUSE Project - Myanmar Universities Seismic Experiment"

May 22, 2020 - Patricia Persaud has been named a 2020–21 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, joining an impressive class whose work will span the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts.

2020 - Patricia Persaud has been selected for an Excellence and Innovation Award from LSU's College of Science in recognition of her outstanding research contributions.

March 2020 - IRIS webinar: "Urban Seismology in Megacities: the Los Angeles BASIN Experiment"

UNAVCO Highlights on our Bangladesh-India_Myanmar Array "Subduction Below Extreme Sedimentation, Part 2 - Myanmar" NSF-EAR: Integrated Earth Systems - Award 1714892.

Oct 2019 - EOS article on the Basin Amplification Seismic Investigation (BASIN) project "Exposing Los Angeles's Shaky Geologic Underbelly". Final data collection phase will occur in November 2019 and brings the total number of stations we have installed to a record 744!

Aug 2019 - LSU International Symposium: Capacity Building in Geophysics and Hazard Mitigation at Myanmar Universities hosted by our group.

Jul 2019 - EOS article on the LIPARI project in Southern Italy "Seismic Sensors Probe Lipari’s Underground Plumbing".

Jul 2019 - Welcome incoming graduate student Ritu Ghose!

Jun 2019 - PASSCAL training and ISLA broadband seismic station installation near Shreveport, Louisiana. See the ISLA station map and team here.

Jun 2019 - Geosphere article on the nature of the crust beneath the Salton Trough & Gulf of California, a region of ongoing continental splitting.

May 2019 - Volunteers installed an additional 110 nodes in the Los Angeles area for the BASIN project!

Apr 2019 - New Journal of Geophysical Research publication from PhD student, Rasheed Ajala shows detailed basement structure near the San Andreas fault in Coachella Valley.

Feb 2019 - GSA Today article on the deep structure beneath the Southeastern U.S. by Netto et al. "Synoptic View of Lithospheric S-Wave Velocity Structure in the Southern United States: A Comparison of 3D Seismic Tomographic Models".

SRL press release!
"Urban Geophone Array Offers New Look at Los Angeles Basin" features our paper showing how "nodes" are used to map Basin Structure in Northern Los Angeles.


Have you heard about BARscope?

GSA press release on our Durmid Ladder structure paper and its implications for a magntitude > 7.8 earthquake near the southern San Andreas fault!
"Site of the Next Major Earthquake on the San Andreas Fault?"


BIMA (Bangladesh-India-Myanmar Array) project in the news!
"Scientists to map quake-prone Asian region in hope of mitigating disaster."


Oct 17, 2018 - We have launched LIPARI!

Aug 27, 2018 - We welcome incoming graduate student Justin Kain who joined the Node Lab this summer!

Aug 20, 2018 - Nature Geoscience article presents results from the recent South China Sea expeditions "Rapid transition from continental breakup to igneous oceanic crust in the South China Sea".

Aug 20, 2018 - Rasheed Ajala and Eric Sandvol are on their way to Myanmar to select the sites for our broadband seismometers and GPS receivers.

July 03, 2018 - Upcoming AGU session on Seismic Hazard in the Alpine-Mediterranean to the Indo-Burma Region T043: Subduction Zone Processes, Orogenesis and Seismic Hazard: From the Alpine-Mediterranean to the Indo-Burma Region

July 03, 2018 - Upcoming AGU session on Gulf of Mexico Tectonics T034: Puzzling Tectonics of the Gulf of Mexico: what do we know, what do we think we know, and what do we need to know?

July, 2018 - Upcoming Nodal deployments!
This summer we will be collecting seismic data in the greater Los Angeles area and the Cajon Pass, California.


May 17, 2018 - Talk at the SSA 2018 Annual meeting: "Factors Controlling Plate Boundary Segmentation in the Gulf of California".

May 11, 2018 - Harris Pritchard is presenting at the Baton Rouge Geological Society: "Using Industry Well Logs to Constrain the State of Stress Beneath Offshore Well Platforms in Seismically Active Southern California".

April 14, 2018 - Paper on the Durmid Ladder structure and its implications for a magntitude > 7.8 earthquake near the southern San Andreas fault accepted in Lithosphere.

April 10, 2018 - Seminar in the Physics Department at Southern University - "From the San Andreas Fault to Myanmar: Building Better Seismic Hazard Models and Why It Matters".

March 13, 2018 - Rasheed Ajala is presenting at the 2018 Student Seismology Workshop at Columbia University.

Dec, 2017 - Convening sessions at the 2017 AGU Fall Meeting in New Orleans, LA - From the Lithosphere to the Delta: Academic and Industry Geophysical Data to Address Scientific and Societal Issues Across the U.S. Gulf Coast and Beyond and Continental Rifts and Passive Margins: Geology, Geophysics, Geodynamics

Dec, 2017 - Presentations at the AGU in New Orleans, LA - 1) Shallow Crustal Structure of the Northern Salton Trough, CA, 2) Borehole Breakout Derived Constrains on Stress Offshore Southern California and 3) A bottom-driven mechanism for distributed faulting - Gulf of California Rift.

Nov, 2017 - Departmental seminar at Tulane University on "Seismic structure of the Gulf of California from surface wave dispersion and its implications for rift dynamics".

Oct, 2017 - Seminar at University of Louisiana Lafayette on "Seismic structure of the Gulf of California from surface wave dispersion and its implications for rift dynamics".

Sep, 2017 - Presentations at the Southern California Earthquake center Annual Meeting in Palm Springs, CA - New 3-D Vp Model for the Coachella Valley, CA and Using Borehole Breakouts in Offshore Wells to Constrain Stress Beneath the Santa Barbara Channel.

Aug 25, 2017 - We welcome incoming PhD students Rasheed Ajala and Guibao Liu who joined the Node Lab this summer!

Aug 21, 2017 - Gulf Coast session is now: "T40: From the Lithosphere to the Delta: Academic and Industry Geophysical Data to Address Scientific and Societal Issues across the U.S. Gulf Coast and Beyond”

June 17, 2017 - Co-convener of Gulf Coast AGU session in New Orleans! T040: Tectonics of the Gulf Coast Region: Lithospheric Structure and What Lurks Beneath the Salt.

June 17, 2017 - Upcoming AGU session on Rifts and Rifted margins T007: Continental Rifts and Passive Margins: Geology, Geophysics, Geodynamics.

May 5, 2017 - Post at the Humans of Earthscope website.

May 1, 2017 - Check out my JOIDES Resolution blog about life and science on the International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition in the South China Sea.

Apr 8, 2017 - Sailing on the JOIDES Resolution IODP Expedition 368 to collect data from the South China Sea Rifted Margin.

Apr 4, 2017 - Undergraduates presenting on Nodal deployment at LSU Discover Day. See the poster here.

March 29-31, 2017 - Attending the SEISMS Workshop - Columbia University.

March 24, 2017 - UH seminar "Controls of lower crustal flow and obliquity on rifting style in the Gulf of California and Salton Trough".

March 23, 2017 - UH Geosociety talk "My Career Path from EAS Undergraduate Geophysics Major to Professor of Geophysics at LSU".

March 21, 2017 - "Deciphering the Secrets of the Deep Earth – Insights from Earthquake Seismology" Seminar at Southern University

March 17, 2017 - Discussion leader for STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee in LSU's Hidden Figures Revealed: Realizing the Dream screening of the 20th Century Fox movie, "Hidden Figures" for over 400 Baton Rouge high school girls - "Come sail with me!" flyer.

Feb 19, 2017 - G&G students in the field deploying seismometers near the San Andreas Fault, Southern California - Twitter Link.

Feb 12, 2017 - Nodes deployed in the San Gabriel basin, southern California.

Feb 8-10, 2017 - Attending the GeoPRISMS Theoretical and Experimental Institute on Rift Initiation and Evolution. Twitter Link

Feb 5-7, 2017 - Attending the Earthscope synthesis workshop - Southern Exposure: Structural and Tectonic Evolution of the Southern Margin of North America. Twitter Link

Feb 2017 - LSU's nodes are going to the field!

Dec 2016 - What Lies Beneath? A Q&A with LSU Seismologist Patricia Persaud in the College of Science blog

2016 Special Tectonophysics issue publication explains the formation of an unusually wide plate boundary zone in the Gulf of California rift.

2016 Geology publication on fault zones imaged in new 3D velocity model for the southern Salton Trough featured in College of Science e-newsletter and G&G post.

Co-organizing special AGU session (T21B, Tues AM): Insights on the Tectonic Evolution of the Salton Trough and Northern Gulf of California from Recent Multidisciplinary Studies.