My Research Group
In my research group I promote a culture of collegiality, in which people support each other to achieve their goals. If you’re a student interested in joining then get in touch or take a look at the Opportunities page.
Samuel Clouston is starting his MSc research in February 2026.
Joel Beltran Gracia is a current PhD researcher. His thesis, “Monitoring supercritical geothermal seismicity with distributed acoustic sensing”, is co-supervised by John Townend.
Julia Berglind is a current PhD researcher. Her thesis, “Geophysically characterising the brittle-ductile transition at Rotokawa geothermal field”, is co-supervised by Alison Kirkby.
Nancy is a current PhD researcher. Her thesis, “Machine-learning for eruption forecasting”, is co-supervised by Felix Yan and Bastiaan Kleijn.
Alexander Gold is a current PhD researcher at the University of Auckland. I am co-supervising his thesis, “Volcano-tectonic interactions in the Taupō Volcanic Zone”, with James Muirhead.
Henriette Bakkar is a current PhD researcher at Université Libre de Bruxelles. I am co-supervising her thesis, “Towards forecasting eruptions at volcanic lakes using seismo-acoustic and complementary data combined with numerical modeling”, with Corentin Caudron.
Miranda Smith-Polette is a current PhD researcher. Her thesis, “Automated Detection and Characterisation of Low-Frequency Seismicity as a Window into Volcanic Processes in Aotearoa New Zealand”, is co-supervised by Martha Savage.
Emily Huber is a current MSc researcher. Her thesis, “Diffusion-based Generative Modelling of New Zealand's Taupō Volcanic Zone Earthquake Catalogue”, is co-supervised by Felix Yan and John Townend.
Bethany Hughes finished her MSc thesis, “Characterising Seismicity at Wairakei-Tauhara Geothermal Field Using a Dense Nodal Array”, in 2025, co-supervised by John Townend and El Mestel. Her research has been published in Seismica and she is now a research assistant at JGU-Mainz.
Ryota Shibuya finished his MSc thesis in 2026. His thesis, “Local earthquake tomography of the Wairakei-Tauhara geothermal field”, was co-supervised by Sima Mousavi at the Australian National University.
Jessie Schuler completed her MSc thesis, “Temporal velocity variations accompanying geodetically detected deformation at Taupō supervolcano”, in 2023. Her research is published in Journal of Geophysical Research, and she is now and engineering geologist.
El Mestel completed their PhD thesis, “Seismicity, sub-surface structure, and partnership with Tangata Whenua of Taupō volcano”, in 2023. Their PhD research has been published in Community Science. They are now a research fellow at VUW.
Olivia Mark completed her MSc thesis, “Exploring the nature and influence of intermediate-depth seismicity beneath the Taupō Volcanic Zone”, in 2023. Her research is published in Journal of Geophysical Research, and she is now an engineering geologist.
Liam Bramwell completed his MSc thesis, “Source Dynamics of Ruapehu’s 2022 Volcanic Unrest: Insights from drumbeat seismicity, tremor, and crater lake signals”, in 2024, co-supervised by Ery Hughes at Earth Sciences New Zealand. Liam’s research has been published in Bulletin of Volcanology, and he is now a PhD student at JGU-Mainz.
Ross McGregor completed his MSc thesis, “A study and interpretation of the distribution and kinematics of the 2001 Taupō Fault Belt seismic swarm using relative relocation techniques”, in 2022. His research is published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, and he is now a consultant geoscientist.
Kristian Hansen completed his MSc thesis, “VolcanoVR: The visualisation of geological data in a 3D virtual reality environment as a multipurpose research, monitoring and education tool”, in 2023, co-supervised by Simon Barker and Craig Anslow. His research is published in Volcanica and he works for Trimble.