Bryant Chow

Bryant Chow is an Assistant Professor of Seismology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, affiliated with the Geophysical Institute and Department of Geosciences. His research spans multiple areas of seismology, with particular focus on adjoint tomography, planetary seismology (especially Venus), cryoseismology, and nuclear treaty monitoring.

Chow's research interests include using seismic waves to understand Earth structure, characterize unique seismic sources, and develop open-source software for seismic research. He has developed several Python packages including SeisFlows, Pyatoa, PySEP, and Pyflex that facilitate seismic data analysis and adjoint tomography workflows. His work often involves field deployments, particularly in Alaska, and he maintains active collaborations with NASA on planetary seismology projects.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on adjoint tomography applications across various regions including New Zealand, Alaska, and Japan, with particular emphasis on subduction zone imaging. He has also made significant contributions to computational seismology through open-source software development and educational workshops.

Chow actively mentors graduate students, including Bella Seppi (PhD student working on Venus seismology) and Kitsel Lusted (MSc student working on cryoseismology with relevance to treaty monitoring). He is committed to science outreach, conducting public talks and art-science collaborations, such as those with Klara Maisch featured at the Mather Library First Friday event.

His educational efforts include developing and hosting workshops such as the SPECFEM Users Workshop 2022, which taught up to 180 participants about seismic simulations using Docker containers and Jupyter notebooks. He also teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on geophysics and seismology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Chow describes himself as a 'computational seismologist who likes to go outside,' reflecting his dual focus on computational work and field deployments. His research has led to the development of the New Zealand Adjoint TOMography model (NZ_ATOM), a 3D velocity model of the North Island of New Zealand derived using earthquake-based adjoint tomography.