University of Texas at Austin
Thorsten Becker

Contact

websitehttp://www-udc.ig.utexas.edu/external/becker/

email

phone (512) 471-0410

office ROC 2.116D

Thorsten Becker

Affiliated faculty (non-Core)

Distinguished Chair in Geophysics

Professor Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research Interests

Computational Mechanics

Biography

Thorsten Becker holds the Shell Foundation Distinguished Chair in Geophysics at the Jackson School of Geosciences and is a faculty associate of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences at UT Austin. He currently chairs the Standing Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics and is a member of the Board of Earth Sciences and Resources at the National Academy of Sciences. His other service commitments include a near-decade stint as Editor in Chief of AGU's Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, and current editorial work for AGU Advances. Thorsten has a Diploma in Physics from Frankfurt University, a Ph.D. in Geophysics from Harvard, and was the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Post-doctoral Scholar at Scripps, UC San Diego.

Becker's main research interests are in geodynamics and seismology, focusing on how planets' interior and surface systems have co-evolved. He has worked on more than 135 publications and is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. His team integrates field, laboratory, analog, and numerical approaches into geodynamical models, focusing on the physics of plate tectonics, from grain-scale deformation to plate-scale flow. The team is always looking for motivated undergraduate and graduate students to join them, exploring how terrestrial planets work and evolve. Becker's teaching interests include Natural Hazards, Geodynamics, Tectonics, Physics of the Deep Earth, and Numerical Modeling of Earth Systems.

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