Meliora Weekend lecture, On quakes, bombs and Earth's anatomySpotlight talk at the Next Einstein Forum, Kigali, 2018Teaching a school class about seismometers, 2018
Outreach & public sciencePlanets, Seismology, Imaging and Hazards for Everyone

Short videos, public lectures and classroom visits on how we turn vibrations and signals into pictures of planetary interiors, volcanoes and earthquake hazards, with algorithms built in the lab. From Washington DC classrooms and the Next Einstein Forum in Kigali to Rochester's Meliora Weekend and free online courses.

  • Schools and science festivals
  • Public lectures
  • Africa and the world
  • Free online courses

Memorable learning happens anywhere: in the lab, in the field, in office hours, in a school classroom or a public lecture hall.

Around the world

Where our research has taken us lately: talks, workshops and field schools. Every invited talk is also on the map on our talks page.

Canberra, Australia · 2026Our first PhD heads to ANU

Ziqi Zhang joins Hrvoje Tkalčić's Laureate team at the Australian National University to study the interiors of planets.

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Vienna, Austria · 2026Ocean sounds at EGU

Sayan Swar and I showed how nuclear-monitoring hydrophones turn submarine earthquakes and volcanoes into virtual sources.

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Pasadena, California · 2026The lab at SSA 2026

We showcased AkiNET, Spec2VEC, CRISP-RF and ArrayBayes at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting.

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South Africa · 2026AfricaArray 2026

We co-convened the AfricaArray workshop on bridging tectonics and societal needs, funded by NSF and the University of the Witwatersrand.

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Bayrischzell, Germany · 2025A research school on ice

Molly Maenner trains in cryo-seismology at a research school in the Bavarian Alps.

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CIG & Gordon conferences · 2025Jean-Joel Legre on the road

Jean-Joel presented his work on the layers in Africa's upper mantle at the CIG and Gordon research conferences.

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EarthScope conference · 2025Love waves out of the noise

Sayan Swar debuted a fast algorithm, built on Slepian tapers, that pulls Love waves out of seismic noise.

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Washington DC · 2024From oceans to Africa at AGU24

Jean-Joel Legre and Ziqi Zhang presented their work at AGU's Fall Meeting and celebrated with lab alumni.

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Cargèse, Corsica · 2024Imaging workshop in Cargèse

Jean-Joel Legre, Steve Carr and I joined a workshop on passive imaging, from seismology to ultrasound.

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Evanston, Illinois · 2024Nemmers workshop at Northwestern

Jean-Joel Legre at Northwestern's workshop on volcano and rift seismicity in Africa.

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Research in a few minutes

Short explainers of our papers, several told by the students who wrote them.

4 min
G-cubed · 2024Africa's crustal architecture

How ambient seismic noise and probabilistic inversion map the crust beneath the whole African continent (ADAMA).

2 min
JGR Solid Earth · 2024A taxonomy of upper-mantle layering in the US

Steve Carr sorts the layers beneath the United States into three types, and says what each one means.

Presented by Steve Carr

1 min
GRL · 2024The intraplate stress field of West Africa

Jean-Joel Legre on what earthquakes reveal about the forces squeezing the West African plate interior.

Presented by Jean-Joel Legre

9 min
EGU · 2024A global view of upper-mantle layering

CRISP-RF cleans noisy receiver functions so that layers in the upper mantle stand out worldwide. Presented with Sayan Swar.

Public lectures and online courses

Longer pieces for a general audience and for students anywhere.

60 min
Meliora Weekend · 2022On quakes, bombs and Earth's anatomy

An alumni lecture on the history, science and uses of forensic and planetary seismology, from earthquake detection to nuclear-test monitoring.

54 min
ROSES online course · 2020Polarization analysis

Unit 6 of Remote Online Sessions for Emerging Seismologists, the AGU Seismology Section's free course for graduate students.

63 min
IRIS webinar · 2022Multimodal seismology modules

How our NSF EAGER team built flipped, active-learning modules for upper-level seismology. With Derek Schutt and Margarete Jadamec.

27 min
AGU Fall Meeting · 2020URseismo at the AGU20 roll call

The lab represents the Seismology section at the opening of the virtual AGU Fall Meeting. Starts at our segment.

Course videosLightboard lectures

The math behind geophysics and the Nature's Fury homework walkthroughs, organized by course.

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Research talksRecorded talks

Invited talks at ANU, GFZ, Cambridge and Oxford, and the Gordon Conference, on a map of where they were given.

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In schools and communities

Visits to classrooms and science weeks in the United States and Africa.

1 min
NEF Science Week · 2018Visiting-scientist week in Nigeria

With the Next Einstein Forum, meeting students and young scientists in Nigeria.

1 min
Africa Science Week · 2020Igniting the power of science

A short message for Africa Science Week, the Next Einstein Forum's continent-wide festival.

Slide of Zhang Heng's seismoscopeTeaching beside the seismoscope slideExplaining earthquakes to the class
A school visit in 2018: Zhang Heng's seismoscope, then questions from the floor.
The Conversation Africa, 2018How scientists listening to the earth can unlock Africa's many riches. Read the article
WHEC News 10, 2021Explaining the magnitude 2.4 earthquake felt in Livingston County, New York. Lab news post
USA Science & Engineering FestivalNifty Fifty speaker, visiting middle and high schools, 2015 to 2016.

Early days: Yale and Maryland

Short pieces from before Rochester, when I was a PhD student at Yale and a postdoc at the University of Maryland.

Yale PhDExploring the Pacific

At sea on a research cruise to Shatsky Rise in the northwest Pacific.

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Yale PhDFieldwork with MAGIC

Installing seismometers with the MAGIC team in the eastern United States.

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TalkPrinceton Geosciences

The composition of the US continental crust, by a transdimensional approach.

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54 s2015
Yale commencementPhD commencement

Commencement day at Yale, after dinner with my thesis advisers.

UMD postdocMessengers from space

A Smithsonian visit with Roberta Rudnick's class, and a meteorite from Mars that fell in Nigeria.

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TalkEars to the ground

Seismic spectrum, applications and careers: an IRIS speaker-series talk at Howard University.

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NigeriaBack to Ile-Ife

Eight years after graduating from Obafemi Awolowo University, a tour of the IFE seismic station.

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Public talkA night of EarthScope

Presenting EarthScope research to the Geological Society of Washington at the Cosmos Club.

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3 min2016
Next Einstein ForumMy NEF application

My three-minute application video for the Next Einstein Forum fellowship, awarded in 2017.

On the roadTalks at Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State and UCSB

Sharing EarthScope science with faculty and students on campus visits.

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17 s2017
Nifty FiftyRoosevelt High School, Washington DC

A moment from my USA Science & Engineering Festival talk to DC public-school students about EarthScope science.

6 min2017
Next Einstein ForumMeet NEF Fellow Tolulope Olugboji

An interview about using ground vibrations and computer models to image the Earth.

7 min2018
Kigali, RwandaNEF Fellows spotlight

My spotlight talk at the Next Einstein Forum Global Gathering, the largest science meeting held in Africa to that date.

4 min2018
Robert Bosch FoundationThe spirit of the Next Einstein Forum

The Bosch Foundation's short film from the Kigali gathering.

Meet the lab

5 min
Lab tour · 2021About URseismo

A five-minute tour of the lab in three parts: our research, new members, and outreach and alumni.

Videos play from YouTube when you click them. More: Lightboard lectures · Recorded research talks · Teaching philosophy. Updated November 2026.

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