Update: Recruiting new PhD Student to start in Fall 2025!

I am recruiting a new student to begin graduate school at Lehigh in Fall 2025. The student will be supported by National Science Foundation funding to a project that focuses on ice sheet forcing of magma plumbing systems. The project will be at the intersection of volcanology and geomechanics and will involve developing physics-based numerical models of magma transport and storage. This work is part of a larger, interdisciplinary project and involves a broad team working on magmatic petrology, geochronology, magma dynamics, glacial geology, geomorphology, and paleoclimate science at five arc volcanoes in the Southern Andean Volcanic Zone in Chile. The successful student applicant will have the opportunity to work with collaborators across the USA and Chile and gain practical skills in numerical modeling and the analysis and integration of interdisciplinary datasets.

The ideal candidate would have prior research experience in volcanology, geomechanics, or a related field, some experience with computing programming (e.g. MATLAB or Python), and an appetite for quantitative and interdisciplinary methods. PhD students are preferred, but strong candidates for a Masters program will be considered.

To learn more about this work, read our newly published paper here!

If you’re interested in applying for this position, please do the following:

Please send an email to Meredith Townsend (met423 - at - lehigh.edu) with the following information:

Introduce yourself and your background, and why you’re interested in working on this project. Please make sure to highlight any skills that you have that are relevant to the project.

Let me know any specific questions you may have about the project.

Include a copy of your CV/Resume and any other material that you think may be helpful for me to look at (e.g., copies of past conference abstracts you’ve submitted, senior or MS theses, transcripts, etc).

If I believe you may be a good fit for the project, I will reach out to schedule a time for us to chat in more detail. Please be aware that I am currently on parental leave, so my replies may be delayed — this delay does not reflect my interest level in working together. Thanks in advance for your patience!

If you want to learn more about the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lehigh and get an application fee waiver, please attend our virtual graduate recruitment fair from 2:00-3:30 pm EST on October 25. More details and a Zoom link for this event will be circulated soon. In the meantime, more information about the department can be found here.

Finally, instructions for applying to Lehigh University’s graduate degree program can be found here.