Hélène Le Mével Joins EPL Geophysics Staff

EPL is pleased to announce the addition of Hélène Le Mével to our geophysics staff, starting February 1, 2017.

As a staff scientist at EPL, Le Mével's research will focus on understanding the surface deformation signals observed at volcanoes to infer the ongoing magmatic processes occurring in the underlying reservoir. Toward this end, she plans to use space and field-based geodesy to identify, model, and interpret the ground deformation observed in volcanic areas.

Le Mével received her Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016, where she was a graduate research assistant from 2012 to 2016. In her Ph.D. research, she used Global Positioning System (GPS) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data to study the ongoing unrest that started in 2007 at Laguna del Maule volcanic field in Chile and was characterized by high rates of uplift. Using time series analysis, Le Mével revealed a nonlinear temporal evolution of the uplift, modeled as the injection of new magma into a large reservoir at depth. Following the completion of her Ph.D., she moved on to a postdoctoral fellowship at EPL in August 2016.

At EPL, she is developing numerical models to investigate the magmatic processes responsible for the deformation measured at large silicic systems both on the decadal (“geodetic”) timescale and the geological timescale of thousands of years. These multiphysics models will allow her to consider the evolving physical processes occurring in the magma chamber (e.g. injection of new magma, cooling, crystallization, gas exsolution), thereby considering deformation episodes as observed today in the framework of the complete volcanic cycle. She plans to apply these models coupling multiphase magma dynamics and crustal deformation to a variety of volcanic systems and tectonic settings.

Please join us in congratulating Le Mével on becoming our newest staff scientist.

February 14, 2017

(Edit: Changed DTM to EPL.)