Geomech Former Students Page

Kathleen Ward M.S., 1993	Qizhi Li M.S., 1993	Paul Piscoran M.S., 1996

Kathleen completed her M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in December 1993. Her thesis was "Dike emplacement and deformation in the Donner Summit pluton, central Sierra Nevada, California." Kathleen TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp and received the Outstanding Student Research Award from the Geological Society of America in 1992; this distinction was given to only 41 of 533 applicants. Her work was funded in part by the Geological Society of America and UNR, and is published in a GSA Field Guide volume and 1 AGU abstract. She was recently a commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard and is now Director, Program Development for the southern European Union with Sanmina-SCI Corporation, Cork, Ireland.	Li completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in December 1993. His thesis was "Uniaxial test and mechanical behavior analysis of the tuffaceous beds of Calico Hills, Yucca Mountain, Nevada," which was funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Project. The work was published as a conference paper in DOE Proceedings volume (1994) and in Engineering Geology (1995). Li is a Registered Geological Engineer in Reno, Nevada, and now is the Chef in his own restaurant.	Paul completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in May 1996. His thesis was "Mode-I fracture array evolution and corresponding rock mass properties: A displacement discontinuity method." Paul TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp for 2 summers and received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award from UNR by the University System Regents for 1996. His work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (Yucca Mountain Project), and is published in a DOE Proceedings volume and 2 AGU abstracts. Paul now is President of his own business, Image Consulting, in Reno, Nevada.

Edward Wellman M.S., 1997	Andrea Fori M.S., 1997	Jason Moore M.S., 1997

Edward completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in May 1997. His thesis was "Fracture, faulting, and gouge development in tuff: A case study at Hoover Dam, Clark County, Nevada and Mojave County, Arizona." Edward TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp. His work is published in 2 AGU abstracts. He worked at JPL in Pasadena, California, after his M.S. with the Mars Pathfinder Sojourner Rover Team, coauthoring a paper in Science. Edward is currently a Registered Geological Engineer in Arizona and Nevada. He is also a Registered Geologist and Civil Engineer in California. Now with Call and Nicholas in Tucson, he was a Senior Engineer / Geologist with Condor Earth Technologies in Sonora, California. His current work is primarily in slope stability, rock mechanics, and tunneling work for major underground operations worldwide.	Andrea was recruited to work on Martian fault population research. Andrea completed her M.S. degree in Geological Engineering and Planetary Science in May 1997. Her thesis was "Faulting across Valles Marineris, Mars: Regional scale statistics and analysis." Andrea TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp and was awarded first place (and $500) for the individual graduate student research category, MSM Open House Poster Competition, April 1996. Her work was funded by NASA and is published in the Journal of Structural Geology, 3 Lunar and Planetary Sceince Conference extended abstracts, and 1 AGU abstract. She was at NASA Ames Research Center in California during summer 1997 and is presently a Senior Systems Engineer with (Lockheed-Martin Co.) in Sunnyvale, California.	Jason completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in May 1997. His thesis was "Displacement-length scaling, kinematics and mechanical implications of Canyonlands National Park grabens." Jason TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp for 2 summers. His work was funded in part by Chevron Petroleum Technology Company and is published in a Utah Geological Association Proceedings volume (Paradox Basin Symposium, 1996), Geological Society of America Bulletin (1999), Journal of Structural Geology (2000) and 2 AGU abstracts. Formerly a staff engineer with Science Applications, Inc. (SAIC) in Las Vegas and Boulder City, Nevada. Formerly an Engineering Geologist with Cotton, Shires, and Associates in Los Gatos, California, he is now back in Fresno, California.

Will Roadarmel M.S., 1998	Paul Caruso M.S., 2002	Scott Wilkins Ph.D., 2002

Will completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering and Planetary Geomechanics in May 1998. His thesis was "Rock Mass Strength, Stability, and Triggering Mechanisms of Venusian Mass Movements." Will was supported in part by the NASA Nevada Space Grant Consortium (2-year Fellowship) and has published 2 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts and 2 AGU abstracts; he also TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp. Formerly with Pinnacle Technologies in San Francisco and Condor Earth Technologies in Sonora, California, Will is a senior manager with Pinnacle/Halliburton in Houston.	Paul completed his M.S. degree in Geological Engineering and Planetary Geomechanics in May 2002. His thesis was "Seismic Triggering of Martian Landslides and Slope Stability for Valles Marineris, Mars." Paul was supported by NASA's Mars Data Analysis Program and has published 1 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstract and 1 AGU abstract.	Scott completed his Ph.D. degree in Planetary Geomechanics in August 2002. His dissertation was "Mechanical and Statistical Aspects of Brittle Faulting: From Coseismic Rupture to Cumulative Deformation." Scott was supported by the NASA's Mars Data Analysis Program and has published 5 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts, 2 AGU abstracts, 2 GSA abstracts, and an extended abstract for the Mars Tharsis Workshop; he also TA'd UNR's Summer Field Camp. He was awarded Best Student Paper in Tectonophysics at Fall AGU (2000). His work is published in Journal of Geophysical Research, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, and Geophysical Research Letters. After turning down 4 other great job offers, Formerly a Research Structural Geologist for Shell Oil International in Houston, Scott is now with Anadarko in Houston.

Clara Balasko M.S., 2003	Chris Okubo Ph.D., 2005	Cheryl Goudy Ph.D., 2005

Clara completed her M.S. degree in Geological Engineering in May 2003 with a thesis on “Mechanism and Sequence of Formation of Deformation Bands into Spatially Localized or Distributed Sets: Ladders, Riedels, and Echelon Arrays of Utah,” 55 pp. Her work was funded by the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund. Her main results have been published in Geophysical Research Letters and in 2 AGU abstracts. She was awarded Best Master’s Student in Geological Engineering at UNR (Spring 2002). Clara is a Geological Engineer with SRK in Tucson, Arizona.	“Brittle Strain Localization within Fault-Related Folds: Grain-scale to Lithospheric Deformation.” Work funded by NASA, and published in Geophysical Research Letters, Computers and Geosciences, Geological Society of America Bulletin, Geology, Journal of Structural Geology, Journal of the Geological Society of London, 9 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts, and 4 AGU abstracts. Matriculated in Fall 2000. He was awarded Honorable Mention for his oral presentations at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conferences in 2002, 2004, and 2005, best doctoral student in UNR’s interdisciplinary Geo-Engineering program (2005) and outstanding graduate student in UNR’s Department of Geological Sciences and Engineering (2005). Chris started in July 2005 as a postdoctoral scholar and scientist with the HiRISE (Mars) Spacecraft Science and Operations Team at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and is now with the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona.	“Remotely Sensed Surface Deformation on Mars and Earth: Mechanics and Analysis.” Matriculated in Fall 2002. Cheryl was supported during her first year by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and later by NASA, a Nevada Space Grant Fellowship, and as a Visiting Scholar with the Department of Geomatics, University of Newcastle (UK). Her work has been published in Geology, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research, a poster at the InSar conference in Reno (September 2002), 2 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts, and 1 AGU abstract. Cheryl now lives in England.

Dan Neuffer M.S., 2005	Anjani Polit M.S., 2005	Wendy Key M.S., 2009

“Mechanisms of Slope Failure in Valles Marineris, Mars and Wells Gray-Clearwater Volcanic Field, British Columbia.” Matriculated in Spring 2004. Work funded by NASA and published in Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology, 1 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstract, and 1 AGU abstract. Dan is now a geological engineer with RTW Professional Engineers and Consultants in Elko, Nevada.	“Influence of Mechanical Stratigraphy and Strain on the Displacement-Length Scaling of Normal Faults on Mars.” Matriculated in Fall 2003. Work funded by NASA and published in Journal of Structural Geology, 2 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts and 2 AGU abstracts. Anjani is now working with the HiRISE (Mars) Spacecraft Science and Operations Team at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson.	“Fault Formation in Porous Rocks at High Strain Rates.” Matriculated in Fall 2007. Work funded by NASA and published in Geological Society of America Bulletin (submitted), 2 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference extended abstracts, and 1 AGU abstract. Wendy participated by invitation in National Geographic’s documentary on Canyonlands National Park, Utah, as the expert in the origin of Upheaval Dome (November 2008) that aired in 2009.

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Geomechanics-Rock Fracture Group