Categories
2023 Fall/Winter 2023

Top of the class

SEE HOW THESE SMU FACULTY MEMBERS HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE IN THEIR FIELDS.

Amber Bay Bemak

Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts, Meadows School of the Arts

2023 GUGGENHEIM FELLOW

Robert Gregory

Professor of Earth Sciences, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS) FELLOW

Heather DeShon

Department Chair and Professor of Earth Sciences, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

2024 SEISMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA (SSA) PRESIDENT

Edward Glasscock

Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH) GRANT

Nicos Makris

Addy Family Centennial Professor in Civil Engineering, Lyle School of Engineering

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS (ASCE) GEORGE W. HOUSNER STRUCTURAL CONTROL AND MONITORING MEDAL

Austin Baldwin

Department Chair and Professor of Psychology, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

SOCIETY OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE FELLOW

Devin Matthews

Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

2023 JAMES H. WILKINSON PRIZE FOR NUMERICAL SOFTWARE

Ruben Habito

Professor of World Religions and Spirituality, Perkins School of Theology

2024 AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT-ELECT

Barbara Hill Moore

Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Professor of Voice, Meadows School of the Arts

LINCOLN UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI HONORARY DOCTOR OF FINE ARTS

Rita Kirk

Professor of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs, Meadows School of the Arts

William F. May Endowed Director, SMU’s Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility

HARVARD UNIVERSITY’S EDMOND & LILY SAFRA CENTER FOR ETHICS VISITING FELLOW


“When our faculty receive high-profile
fellowships, society memberships,
leadership positions and honorifics, it
demonstrates the expanding scope of
our impact. SMU’s faculty are truly world
changers in their fields – at the local,
national and international levels.”

Elizabeth G. Loboa
SMU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow
Categories
2018 April 2018 News

Keeping an eye on the oil patch from space

Two giant sinkholes near Wink, Texas, may be the tip of the iceberg, according to a new study that found alarming rates of new ground movement extending far beyond the infamous sinkholes.
That’s the finding of a geophysical team from SMU that previously reported the rapid rate at which the sinkholes are expanding and new ones are forming.
Now the team has discovered that various locations in large portions of four Texas counties are also sinking and uplifting.
Radar satellite images show significant movement of the ground across localities in a 4000-square-mile area — in one place, as much as 40 inches over the past two-and-a-half years, say the geophysicists.
“The ground movement we’re seeing is not normal. The ground doesn’t typically do this without some cause,” said geophysicist Zhong Lu, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences at SMU and a global expert in satellite radar imagery analysis.
“These hazards represent a danger to residents, roads, railroads, levees, dams, and oil and gas pipelines, as well as potential pollution of ground water,” Lu said. “Proactive, continuous detailed monitoring from space is critical to secure the safety of people and property.”
The scientists made the discovery with analysis of medium-resolution (15 feet to 65 feet) radar imagery taken between November 2014 and April 2017. The images cover portions of four oil-patch counties where there’s heavy production of hydrocarbons from the oil-rich West Texas Permian Basin.
The imagery, coupled with oil-well production data from the Railroad Commission of Texas, suggests the area’s unstable ground is associated with decades of oil activity and its effect on rocks below the surface of the earth.
Read more at SMU Research.

Categories
Alumni

SMU Alumna And Earth Sciences Research Faculty Member Named Researcher Of The Year

Mihan House McKenna ’05, a research geophysicist with the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory (GSL) at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Miss., is the recipient of the 2013 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Researcher of the Year Award.

Mihan House McKenna '05
Mihan House McKenna ’05

McKenna received her doctorate in geophysics from SMU’s Huffington Department of Earth Sciences and now holds the position of research faculty member. She maintains an interest in applied research and academics at SMU through her joint supervision of graduate students and service on dissertation committees, according to Brian Stump, Claude C. Albritton Professor of Earth Sciences, who supervised McKenna’s thesis research.

McKenna’s achievement comes as no surprise to Stump. “She reaches out to understand a variety of technologies, and then finds innovative ways to apply them,” he says.

After earning her doctorate, McKenna joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pursue infrasound research. Infrasound refers to sound that is below the frequency band audible to the human ear and can travel great distances. Scientists measure low-frequency acoustic waves as they move through the atmosphere to monitor many different types of natural and man-made events. Such events can range from shallow earthquakes to volcanic eruptions to nuclear explosions to meteorites passing through the atmosphere. Infrasound study also plays a role in many other research spheres, from cardiology to animal communication.

McKenna’s current investigations apply infrasound experimental techniques, mapping and numerical analysis using high-performance computing to create complex 3D models of structures. The models are used to evaluate the health of buildings, bridges and other structures without having to physically examine them.

Mihan House McKenna ’05 accepts the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Researcher of the Year Award from David Pittman, director of the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, U.S Army Engineer Research and Development Center.
Mihan House McKenna ’05 accepts the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Researcher of the Year Award from David Pittman, director of the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, U.S Army Engineer Research and Development Center.

“All structures ‘sing’, but we cannot hear the vibrations because the frequencies are below what humans can perceive,” says McKenna, who is also a federally certified bridge inspector as well as a registered professional geologist. “Using the naturally emitted, low-frequency structural acoustics (infrasound), engineers are now able to assess condition, capacity and holistic behavior of large, critical structures from distances of 10 or more kilometers by listening to the music these structures create.”

This type of remote monitoring has many potential applications, from tactical route reconnaissance for the military to evaluating the safety of civilian structures.

McKenna’s area of expertise supports tactical decision making for deployed military expeditionary forces. She directs the Remote Assessment of Critical Infrastructure working group at ERDC, which has research projects with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Defense Intelligence Agency, Los Alamos National Laboratory and academic institutions. She supports several ongoing Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) programs related to national security.

As an SMU graduate student from 1999 to 2005, she merged her undergraduate interests in physics, acoustics and music with geophysics in the form of infrasound research, comments Robert T. Gregory, chair of Earth Sciences in SMU’s Dedman College. “Mihan came to SMU with a strong background in physics from Georgetown University where she was also an accomplished musician, which helped spark her interest in acoustics.”

As a graduate student, McKenna served as a research assistant supported by funding from the U.S. Air Force. She also excelled in the classroom/laboratory as a teaching assistant in earth science courses. Among the undergraduate courses she assisted with were Stump’s “Earthquakes and Volcanoes” and Gregory’s “Solar System” classes.

At SMU she conducted research in support of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and currently serves as an advisory member of the U.S. and International Infrasound Working Groups for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna, Austria.
– Patricia Ward