PhD opportunities in environmental seismology and bedload transport - New Mexico Tech and UT Austin
Danica Roth
We are seeking applicants for two funded PhD positions exploring environmental seismology, turbulent flow hydraulics and bedload transport using smartrocks. One student will be based at New Mexico Tech and one at UT Austin. Student start dates could be Fall 2025 (NMT), Spring 2026 (NMT), or Fall 2026 (UT).
Coarse sediment transport in river systems is a fundamental control on rates and patterns of erosion, deposition, and channel migration. It influences flood hazards, river management, communities, and infrastructure near rivers. Yet quantifying when, where, and how much bedload moves during floods remains challenging, as direct measurements are usually limited in scope, require expensive in-channel monitoring infrastructure, and can be dangerous. Our project involves a series of controlled laboratory experiments, conducted at a large outdoor flume at the University of Texas at Austin, using paired seismic, Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), and hydroacoustic instruments co-deployed with a suite of turbulent flow and bedload monitoring instrumentation including instrumented smartrocks. The lab experiments will be followed by a field deployment to evaluate the efficacy of best deployment practices developed in the flume.
Students will work with an interdisciplinary team with expertise in seismology, hydrology, fluid dynamics, and fluvial geomorphology. One student will be based at New Mexico Tech to focus on the seismic and DAS data analysis, co-advised by Dr. Susan Bilek (NMT) and Dr. Danica Roth (Univ. Colorado-Boulder). Another student will be based at UT-Austin focused on turbulence and sediment transport data, co-advised by Dr. Joel Johnson (UT), Dr. Blair Johnson (UT) and Dr. Dan Cadol (NMT). Both students will gain experience quantitatively analyzing flow, transport and seismo-acoustic data and will participate in designing the experiments and field campaign.
For more information, please contact Dr. Susan Bilek (susan...@nmt.edu) and/or Dr. Joel Johnson (jo...@jsg.utexas.edu).