Roland Bürgmann

Roland Bürgmann serves as a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, where he heads the Active Tectonics research group.

His research centers on active tectonics and crustal rheology, utilizing Global Positioning System (GPS) and Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) to measure crustal deformation near active faults, volcanoes, and landslides. He develops models of deformation through the earthquake cycle to understand lithospheric rheology and deformation mechanisms. Recent projects investigate the active earthquake cycle and post-earthquake deformation in California and Alaska's Denali fault, subduction zone earthquakes across Japan, Chile, and Sumatra, and integrate GPS, InSAR, and micro-earthquake data to analyze interseismic deformation in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bürgmann leads the Active Tectonics group at UC Berkeley, conducting field and modeling studies of deformation processes in diverse tectonic settings worldwide, with emphasis on seismic and aseismic fault behavior.