Graduate Student Positions
The EES department is always seeking graduate student applicants each fall admission cycle. Graduate students are typically supported by fellowships, research assistantships or teaching assistantships. The graduate admission process is described in detail here with application deadlines at the end of the year. Below are some of the graduate student research opportunities being specifically sought for admission in the 2026 cycle, and we also encourage you to contact the faculty members working on topics that interest you directly.
InSAR and Complex Deformation. Professors Julie Elliott and Jeff Freymueller are seeking PhD students to work on a newly funded project that will use spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry (InSAR) along with other geodetic data sets to characterize complex surface deformation that varies in time and space due to combinations of tectonic, hydrologic, and volcanic signals. Students will gain experience with data processing and analysis of large geophysical data sets (including data from the newly launched NISAR satellite mission) and modeling to constrain the sources of deformation while working within a collaborative, multi-institutional project. You can find more information here.
Asteroid Composition and Dynamical History. Professor Seth Jacobson is seeking a PhD student to study the history of the asteroid belt using compositional constraints from newly obtained James Webb Space Telescope data. In order to interpret this data, the student will use numerical modeling to assess possible asteroid origin scenarios as well as geophysical models of asteroid surfaces and interiors.
Marine Seismology. Professor S. Shawn Wei is seeking a PhD student to work on the NSF-funded SEE-A STAR project (Seismic Experiment for Eastern Aleutian Subduction Tremor and Earthquake Research) to investigate the structure and seismic behavior of the eastern Aleutian subduction zone using broadband ocean-bottom and land seismic observations. The student will join research cruises to deploy and recover BBOBSs and analyze the data to image the subduction zone and to characterize earthquake and tectonic tremor activity. A key component of the project is close collaboration with researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) on seismic imaging and with the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) on tectonic tremor detection and analysis. The student will gain experience in marine seismic fieldwork, large seismic datasets, earthquake and tremor detection, seismic imaging, and interdisciplinary research within a collaborative, multi-institutional team. More information about SEEA STAR is updated here: https://sites.google.com/hawaii.edu/seea-star.