Current Group Members

  • Meredith Townsend

    Assistant Professor, lead PI
    met423 - at - lehigh.edu
    Curriculum Vitae
    Magma storage and transport, geomechanics, fractures and fluids

  • Beck Knittel

    MS Student
    Using volatiles in apatite to constrain post-glacial eruption triggering mechanisms at Mocho-Choshuenco, Chile

  • Desireé Cunningham Greve

    PhD Student
    Structural and tectonic controls on magma transport

  • Franziska Keller

    Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    Magmatic petrology, volcano-tectonic interactions

  • Shannyn Konek

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Analyzing dikes at Elysium Mons (Mars)

  • Nikhil Manakkal

    Undergraduate Researcher

    Influence of sea level change on mid-ocean hydrothermal systems


Former group members:

Andreas Marangos, Undergraduate Researcher 2026: Petrofabric analysis from dikes at Summer Coon Volcano, Colorado, now a MS student at Lehigh

Emily Walsh, Undergraduate Honors Thesis 2026: Dike Mechanics at Elysium Mons (Mars), now working at Blue Origin

Kathryn Scholz, PhD 2025: Magma Chamber Dynamics, Volcano Seismicity, and Numerical Dike Models, now an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory

Gui Aksit, PhD 2025: The Influence of Volcanic Topography and Magma Properties on Silicic Dike Propagation Using Geological Data and Numerical Models, now Assistant Professor at Whitman College

Rebecca Bussard (co-advised with Josef Dufek), PhD 2024: Insights from Mapping Distributed and Focused Volcanism, now a postdoctoral researcher at Penn State

Ana Mercedes Colón Umpierre, MS 2021: Characterizing ice-magma features in the central Oregon Cascades

Catherine O’Hara, Undergraduate Honors Thesis 2021: Constraining magma storage and recharge beneath South Sister Volcano using numerical modeling, now a PhD student at University of Iceland