R E S E A R C H

In 2017, the Eagle Creek Fire burned 200 square kilometers of the Columbia River Gorge (CRG). 

I worked with collaborators from DOGAMI, Oregon State University, and USGS to create pre- and post-fire debris flow inventories using lidar from 2009, 2018, 2021, and 2022—the first of its kind for Oregon.

Many of the debris flows in the region occurred in the Dodson Catchments, where "post-fire" events were initaiting from burned and unburned areas. In work recently published in Science Advances, I show transient conditions here permit debris flow reloading on the order of decades, reducing the sensitivity to post-fire conditions.  

(contrary to expectations, no post-fire debris flow occurred in the channel to the right)
photo credit: ODOT

I am interested in analyzing basin and fan morphology to track the evolution from rockfall- to debris-flow-dominated erosional processes along the steep basalt escarpment.

I was contracted by the Oregon Department of Transportation to create a tool to model relative reloading rates in post-fire landscapes in Oregon. To do so, I use previously constrained empirical relationships between erosion rate and slope to calculate basin-averaged hazard indices. 

I plan to validate the model with our post-fire debris flow inventory from the CRG, as well as other landslide observations from Oregon 

(e.g., Selander et al., 2025).

Myself and two fellow PhD candidates—Mike Robinson (UNR) and Brandon Fong (Penn State)—have taken advantage of a natural experiment in northern Arizona to isolate the influence of lithology in enabling slot canyon formation. 

With a grant that provided training and field equipment from the UW RAPID Program, I used UAV-based mapping to collect lidar data over a debris flow avulsion site in Klukwan, AK for the KUTI project. Myself and a UO undergraduate are currently working to difference the point cloud data with previously collected Structure from Motion and lidar datasets. I also assisted with installation of infrasound sensors, seismic sensors, and game cameras.

With the KUTI project, I have had the opportunity to share our science with and learn from stakeholders, regional and local environmental groups, and tribal community members. 

These conversations sparked the transfer of knowledge about regional hazards, climate, and geology that has been critical to the project.  

Following Hurrican Hilary in November 2023, the Center for Land Surface Hazards (CLaSH) assembled a team of early-career scientists (including myself) and the UW RAPID facility to capture the aftermath of the large, unprecedented rain event in Death Valley. 

We collected observations and terrestrial laser scanning lidar surveys along affected alluvial fans using instruments.