Information for Prospective Graduate Students
Thank you for your interest in joining my research group! I am always looking for highly motivated students to work with me on exciting research projects. Instead of replying to individual emails, I’ve decided to host a Zoom office hour this year to provide an overview of my group and answer any questions you may have. If you're interested, please fill out this form, and I will send you details about the office hour. I look forward to meeting you!
The Zhan Group of Observational Seismology
The Zhan Group covers the broad area of observational seismology, from subducted slabs in the deep Earth to shallow sedimentary basins in urban areas, from rupture processes of large earthquakes to seismic moment tensors during volcanic eruptions. We recently focus primarily on applying fiber-optic sensing technologies to build the next-generation seismic networks, both on land and in the ocean. Seismology is at a time of rapid changes, due to new technologies and shifting societal needs (e.g., climate change, megacities). Under this context, we also extend our research to problems that are outside conventional geophysics, such as global ocean warming, groundwater monitoring, and cryoseismology. The group collaborates extensively both inside and outside geophysics or academia, with fiber-optics experts, industry partners, and stakeholders.
Recent News and Media Coverage
You can find out the latest about my group on my LinkedIn and Twitter/X.
- [08/05/2024] Press release on our Nature Communications paper Fiber-optic seismic sensing of vadose zone soil moisture dynamics on Caltech News, EOS and many others.
- [07/30/2024] Congratulations to Dr. Yan Yang and Dr. James Atterholt for getting their PhDs!
- [04/24/2024] Zhongwen Zhan presented the Caltech Watson Lecture: A seismic odyssey to the South Pole. Recording available here.
- [03/07/2024] CENIC Recognizes Caltech’s Zhan Group of Observational Seismology for Research on Fiber-optic Cables as Seismic Sensor Nets with the 2024 Innovations in Networking Award. Announcement.
- [03/05/2024] Congratulations to Yan Yang and James Atterholt for winning the Outstanding Student Presentation Awards in AGU2023!
- [08/02/2023] Caltech News, LA Times, and other press coverage on our Science Advances paper An upper-crust lid over the Long Valley magma chamber.
- [08/02/2023] Caltech News, Pasadena Star-News, and other press coverage on our Nature paper The break of earthquake asperities imaged by distributed acoustic sensing. Also on NPR news.
- [06/14/2023] James Atterholt receives the 2023 Student Presentation Award for his research “High-Resolution Fault Zone Imaging With Distributed Acoustic Sensing” at the 2023 SSA meeting in Puerto Rico! Congratulations!
- [06/09/2023] Yan Yang receives the inaugural GPS Award for Academic Excellence in Research! Congratulations!
- [03/08/2023] A Caltech Magazine story on Zhongwen Zhan's South Pole trip.
- [02/26/2023] A BBC News Science In Action interview on Zhongwen Zhan's South Pole trip.
- [02/22/2023] Press coverage on our Nature paper Weak upper-mantle base revealed by postseismic deformation of a deep earthquake.
- [10/03/2023] Zhongwen Zhan receives the AGU James B. Macelwane Medal!
- [07/26/2022] The New Yorker featured our research on submarine fiber sensing of earthquakes over long-haul telecom cables.
- [02/15/2022] AGU highlighted our paper Sub-Kilometer Correlation Between Near-Surface Structure and Ground Motion Measured With Distributed Acoustic Sensing on GRL.
- [02/08/2022] AGU highlighted our paper The 2021 South Sandwich Island Mw 8.2 Earthquake: A Slow Event Sandwiched Between Regular Ruptures on GRL.
- [06/28/2021] AGU Advances' Editor highlights our paper (open access): Rapid Response to the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake With Distributed Acoustic Sensing.
- [03/01/2021] Press release on our Science paper Optical polarization–based seismic and water wave sensing on transoceanic cables by Science, BBC, Caltech, The Verge, and many more. You can access the Full Text and Reprint free of charge here.
- [09/30/2020] Zhongwen Zhan featured in Science News' 2020 SN10: Scientists to Watch.
- [09/17/2020] Press release on our Science paper Seismic ocean thermometry by Science, Scientific American, BBC, Caltech, AGU EOS, and many more.
- [06/04/2020] AGU EOS report: Everything’s Coming Up Roses for Pasadena Seismologists
- [05/14/2020] Science reports our DAS research about the 2020 Rose Parade: World’s loudest bands create seismic waves
- [05/08/2020] Marching.com reports our top 5 loudest marching bands of the 2020 Rose Parade: 2020 Rose Parade radiates rhythm underground
- [05/06/2020] Seismological Society of America (SSA) and Caltech feature our SRL paper Fiber Optics Capture Seismic Signatures of the Rose Parade
- [02/19/2020] Scientific American article discusses our DAS experiment on Taku Glacier, Alaska among others: Kilometers of "Dark Cable" Form the Newest Seismic Sensors
- [01/29/2020] Zhichao Shen receives AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Award from the 2019 AGU Fall Meeting. The title of the study is “Small-scale instraslab heterogeneity constrained from inter-source interferometry". Congratulations!
- [12/18/2019] Press release on our Nature Communications paper: Submarine Cables to Offshore Wind Farms Transformed into a Seismic Network and and on over 14 other news outlets.
- [12/03/2019] Press release from the Seismological Society of America about my "Emerging Topics" piece: Seismologists See Future in Fiber Optic Cables as Earthquake Sensors
- [11/19/2019] The Pasadena Array officially online: Caltech and the City of Pasadena Team Up to Build Seismic Sensing Network
- [10/17/2019] Caltech press release on our Science paper about the complicated rupture during the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence: Lessons From Ridgecrest
- [08/27/2019] The Caltech Effect covers our DAS research initiative: Listening with Light
- [07/24/2019] Caltech news on our rapid DAS deployment to the 2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake epicentral region: Seismologists Monitor Ridgecrest Aftershocks Using Novel Fiber Optic Network
- [05/24/2019] AGU EOS article covers our work of seismic noise interferometry across a surge glacier: Seismic Clues to Surging Glaciers
- [04/09/2019] Ethan Williams wins the 2019 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Congratulations!