Postdoctoral Research Scientist | Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Hi! I'm Stacy (she/her).
I’m a geophysicist interested in the various fluid-solid interactions that affect the stability and dynamics of geophysical systems such as glaciers, aquifers and faults. My research aims to gain insight into these hydro-mechanically coupled systems through geodesy, data analysis and modeling.
I’m currently a postdoctoral research scientist in the Polar Geophysics and Glaciology group at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory where I work with Jonny Kingslake, Meredith Nettles and Laura Stevens on understanding how increasing meltwater levels affect ice sheet dynamics. Fluid-solid interactions are central to answering this question as meltwater can drive hydrofractures through the entire ice thickness, enhance frictional sliding at the ice-bed interface, and even form firn aquifers in the surficial layers.
During my PhD at Caltech, I focused on mechanical interactions between water and the solid Earth. With Jean-Philippe Avouac, Kristel Chanard and others, we developed methodologies to characterize geodetic signals associated with elastic loading of the Earth by fluctuating hydrological mass and with the poroelastic response of aquifers to fluctuating groundwater levels. This work has important implications for water resources management as well as to constrain the rheology and elastic properties of the Earth. With Nadia Lapusta, Jean-Paul Ampuero and others, we used numerical models and analytical derivations to better understand how injections of water into the Earth’s crust can reactivate faults, leading to both stable aseismic slip and earthquake nucleation. This is important to minimize seismic hazard associated with the geoenergy industry as well as to elucidate the physics of natural earthquakes for which fluids are thought to play a crucial role.