My research and teaching interests are in the general area of structural geology applied to solving problems related to the physical and chemical evolution of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle. In my research, I use a combination of active testing of how changing variables such as temperature and strain rate affects the microstructures that develop due to specific deformation mechanisms and observational analysis of naturally deformed rocks to constrain the conditions that produce these same microstructures in nature. Understanding these grain-scale processes contributes to our understanding of larger scale processes and controls on plate tectonics.
