Having been born and raised in a volcanic archipelago, the Canary Islands, I have always been fascinated by the geological processes that operate on Earth, the mechanisms that drive them, and their impacts on society. I further developed my passion for volcano geophysics during a visit to Iceland when I was 16, where I had the chance to meet a Ph.D. student who was using GPS data for volcano monitoring. Ever since, I have been drawn to research involving the study of volcanic hazards through geophysical methods.
I completed my undergraduate and master’s degrees in Earth sciences at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Throughout those four years, I was able to complement my studies with a series of summer internships that helped narrow my research interests. I participated in a geochemical campaign after the 2011 volcanic eruption on El Hierro and a one-month offshore seismic data acquisition campaign to image the subsurface beneath Mount Etna, Sicily to obtain data for tomographic models. I also participated in a Karst Scene Investigation project in Russia involving seismic, radiologic, gravitational, magnetic, and electric surveys. For my master’s thesis, I chose to follow the route of deep Earth seismology, focusing on the topography of the core mantle boundary that would provide me with valuable computing skills. However, I knew I would find it most rewarding to work on science that has direct societal impacts, and having discovered the applications of radar satellite data for monitoring ground surface deformation through my tutor’s research, I chose to pursue my Ph.D. with Dr. Christelle Wauthier at Penn State.
My Ph.D. research focuses on flank instability processes at Pacaya volcano in Guatemala, where there is evidence for past flank
collapse. My passion for this research is driven by the opportunity to contribute scientific knowledge to hazard assessment that can then be incorporated into risk mitigation. At Pacaya, we rely largely on satellite data to study past flank instability events, which makes my research topic equally challenging and exciting. My main focus is unravelling the deformation behavior of the volcano over time, identifying temporal links with eruptions and other volcanic signals, as well as investigating potential sources of the observed deformation through numerical modeling. In particular, I aim to determine whether there exists a detachment fault within the volcanic edifice, which might facilitate slip and pose a greater threat of flank collapse.
Through taking courses both in the Departments of Geosciences and Mechanical Engineering, the graduate program at Penn State has enabled me to further my understanding of topics relevant to my Ph.D. research. Additionally, I enjoy the opportunity to share my knowledge with younger students as their teaching assistant. My long-term goal is to pursue an academic career in volcano geodesy or become part of a geoscience research institution or volcano observatory so that I can continue to apply my knowledge to solve problems related to natural hazards and risk mitigation.