The Olugboji Planetary Imaging and Earth Hazards Lab images the interiors of Earth and other planets and listens to earthquakes and volcanoes, turning sparse, noisy seismic and acoustic recordings into sharp maps and catalogs. Students learn seismology, machine learning and high-performance computing on funded NSF projects.
Open positions
PhD students for Fall 2027 on two NSF projects, and a postdoctoral researcher. A degree in physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science or the geosciences, and some programming (Python or MATLAB). Prior seismology is not required.
Train AI to pull clean signals (SS and PP precursors, Ps and Sp receiver functions) from sparse, noisy seafloor data, then build uncertainty-aware 3-D images of the Pacific lithosphere and asthenosphere with probabilistic inversion and generative AI.
Build open, high-resolution seismic models of Africa's crust, lithosphere and upper mantle, including anisotropy and mantle discontinuities, from AfricaArray and other open data, working with the geodesy and geodynamics partners at Virginia Tech and Colgate.
Lead seismic imaging on either project, with room to develop your own questions. Start date flexible in 2027.
Email a CV, a two-page research statement and the names of three references. Review begins when applications arrive and continues until the position is filled.
How we do research
Before you email me, read how the group works: how we choose questions, share code and data, write, and use AI. These six principles are what I'll ask you about when we talk.
Read the six principles as text
The Olugboji Group will Reach-Up, Pull-Up, and Stay-Up! Science moves only as fast as it can be found, understood, and reused. We treat publications not as the finish line, but as a launchpad.
- Resolve tensions, don't just “fill gaps”. Find active debates, empirical disagreements and methodological bottlenecks, then design research to settle them. A paper that resolves a tension becomes a mandatory citation.
- Always ship a “second citable object”. A PDF is a claim; a repository is proof. Every paper comes with code, data, a benchmark or a pipeline on GitHub or Zenodo with its own DOI.
- Write for humans and algorithms. Titles and abstracts serve human skimmers and semantic AI search. The first three sentences state the method, the dataset and the quantitative gain over prior art.
- Accelerate the cycle. Deposit submission-ready preprints immediately, with clean ORCID metadata. Monitor our citation graphs and reach out to the people building on our work.
- Defend the prose (the AI policy). AI is a reasoning tool, never our voice. It searches, cross-checks and plays Reviewer #2, grounded in the real text of every paper we cite. People choose the questions and write the prose.
- We stand on giants, and want giants to stand on us. We build on the most influential work in our field, and measure whether influential work builds on ours. Tracked every quarter.
How we check, every quarter: Reach-Up, the share of our references that are field-leading; Pull-Up, the share of the works citing us that are field-leading; Stay-Up, the share of our own papers that are field-leading.
How to apply for the PhD
- Step 1Email me first. The department asks applicants to contact faculty before applying. In your email, tell me:
- What is your educational background?
- Why do you want a research career in the Earth sciences?
- What kinds of problems do you like to solve?
- Which project or research question would you like to explore?
- Which paper from the lab, or elsewhere, interests you, and why does it stand out?
Attach a CV and an unofficial transcript. You do not need prior research experience. A strong quantitative or computing background and a real interest in the lab's questions matter most.
- Step 2Apply online by December 15, 2026. Use the University of Rochester graduate application, choose Earth and Environmental Sciences, and select the Fall 2027 term. The application fee is $70.
- Step 3Upload these documents.
- Transcripts from every college or university you attended
- Three letters of recommendation, ideally speaking to your writing
- A personal statement
- A writing sample, such as a thesis or a research paper from a course (recommended, not required)
- GRE scores (recommended, not required)
- International applicants: a TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo score
The English test is waived for citizens of Australia, Canada, the Commonwealth Caribbean nations, Ghana, Ireland, Kenya, Liberia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, the United Kingdom and the Virgin Islands, and for applicants with at least three years of full-time, in-person study in one of these countries or the United States.
Undergraduates and master’s students
Undergraduates join the lab through independent study, senior theses and paid summer internships. Former undergraduate researchers have gone on to graduate programs at MIT, Princeton and Georgia Tech.
Master's students in the University of Rochester's Data Science program, especially the computational and statistical methods concentration, can take on year-long projects that apply machine learning, parallel computing and Bayesian methods to large seismic datasets.
Recent PhD graduates
Life in the lab
Our commitment
Our group believes that the different backgrounds, experiences and ideas our members bring enrich every part of education, making it a richer, more valuable experience for all of us. In partnership with the David T. Kearns Center at the University of Rochester, we support incoming students from under-represented populations. Our commitment as a group is to provide all members with the academic mentoring and the supportive environment they need to navigate unique educational backgrounds, experiences and cultural influences as they adjust to the learning journey of the PhD.
Fellowships and financial aid
Resources for prospective students
These resources can help with the move from coursework, with its short-term goals, tight structure and guided problems, to the open-ended problem-solving of research and dissertation writing.
Contact: tolulope dot olugboji at rochester dot edu · book a 30-minute meeting. Application details follow the EES Applying page. Updated November 2026.