John Albright

I am a third year Ph.D. student working with Dr. Trish Gregg to develop and test new methods for understanding the geometry and behavior of active volcanic systems based on geophysical data collected at the surface.

How do magma storage and plumbing systems underneath volcanoes accommodate pulses of new magma from below? What factors determine whether a given pule will trigger an eruption or intrusion? How do these processes translate to measurable signals, geophysical or otherwise? How can we interpret those signals to better understand volcanic systems and improve public safety? These are the questions I seek to answer with my research, using statistics-based data assimilation algorithms to match observations with sophisticated numerical models of magma chamber evolution and stability.

I love geology for its holistic and applied nature; it's a field where collaborators can bring knowledge and information from diverse fields, such as solid mechanics and gas chemistry, and combine them in creative ways to address pressing real-world issues. Moreover, my interest in geology has taken me all over the world, including New Zealand, Scotland (pictured), and even 3 km down to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean!

The UIUC Volcano Lab has Facebook and YouTube pages we use for public outreach and to share stories of our travels and research, go check it out!