Dr. Andrew Parsekian

Fundamentals of Research (GEOL 5020) - every fall
This course is designed to be boot camp for incoming graduate students to: (A) become familiar with the “business” of science (i.e. how do I get funding, become visible and get a job?); (B) refine their communication skills; (C) get a jump start on developing a research project (ideally to be part of a MS or PhD thesis); (D) familiarize incoming graduate students on the workings of the department; and (E) have an opportunity to get to know their peers and some of the faculty.

Engineering and Environmental Geophysics (CE 5321/GEOL 5321) - spring, odd years
The content in this class fills the need for civil/environmental/transportation engineers and earth scientists to be capable at applying near-surface geophysical measurements and understanding the strengths and limitations of these methods for solving problems. Topics covered include principals of ground penetrating radar, electrical resistivity, seismic, nuclear magnetic resonance, rock physics relationships, inversion and other topics. A review of examples from the peer-reviewed scientific/engineering literature is presented. Students collect lab and field datasets and process and interpret the data.

Research

Environmental Geophysics is the interdisciplinary field that investigates processes in Earth's systems using geophysical measurements. My research focuses on studying cryosphere and groundwater processes using non-invasive geophysical methods. Members of my research group have expertise with ground penetrating radar, seismic refraction tomography, time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography, and nuclear magnetic resonance.

Recent Publications

Harris, R. H.*, Evans, S. G., Marshall, S. T., Godsey, S. E., & Parsekian, A. D. (2025). Using ground‐penetrating radar to infer ice wedge characteristics proximal to water tracks. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 130(1), e2024JF007832. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JF007832
Pleasants, M. S.*, Kelleners, T. J., Parsekian, A. D., Befus, K. M., Flerchinger, G. N., Seyfried, M. S., & Carr, B. J. (2024). Hydrogeophysical inversion using a physics-based catchment model with hydrological and electromagnetic induction data. Journal of Hydrology, 132376. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2024.132376
Ohara, N., Parsekian, A. D., Jones, B. M., Rangel, R. C., Hinkel, K. M., & Perdigão, R. A. (2024). Characterization of Non-Gaussianity in the Snow Distributions of Various Landscapes. The Cryosphere. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-5139-2024
Loisel, J., Peters, J., Tegetmeyer, C., Girkin, N., Parsekian, A., & Rivera Wong, J. (2024). Observations from an expedition to Costa Rican peatlands. The Society of Wetland Scientists bulletin, 42(1).
Miller, C. E., Griffith, P. C., Hoy, E., Pinto, N. S., Lou, Y., Hensley, S., ... Parsekian, A.D. ...& Goetz, S. J. (2024). The ABoVE L-band and P-band airborne synthetic aperture radar surveys. Earth System Science Data, 16(6), 2605-2624. https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-2605-2024
Oladeji, E.*, Parsekian, A.D., & Grana, D. (2024). Machine learning‐based hydrofacies classification: Effects of noise and regularization. Journal of Geophysical Research: Machine Learning and Computation, 1(3), e2024JH000197. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JH000197
Li, A.*, Grana, D., Parsekian, A. D., & Carr, B. (2024). Uncertainty Quantification in Tomographic Inversion of Near-Surface Seismic Refraction Data. Mathematical Geosciences, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-023-10083-9
Jones, B. M., Kanevskiy, M. Z., Parsekian, A. D., Bergstedt, H., Ward Jones, M. K., Rangel, R. C., Hinkel, K.M. and Shur, Y. (2023). Rapid saline permafrost thaw below a shallow thermokarst lake in Arctic Alaska. Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2023GL105552. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL105552
Sims, K. W., Messa, C. M., Scott, S. R., Parsekian, A. D., Miller, A., Role, A. L., ... & Boyd, E. S. (2023). The Dynamic Influence of Subsurface Geological Processes on the Assembly and Diversification of Thermophilic Microbial Communities in Continental Hydrothermal Systems. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2023.10.021
Jiao, J., Zhang, Y., Parsekian, A. D., Miller, S., Maxwell, R. M., Nguyen, M. C., & Flinchum, B. A. (2023). Integrated hydrological modeling of the No-Name watershed, Medicine Bow Mountains, Wyoming (USA). Hydrogeology Journal, 1-15.https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-023-02712-8
Rangel, R. C.*, Ohara, N., Parsekian, A. D., & Jones, B. M. (2023). Arctic tundra lake drainage increases snow storage in drifts. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 128, e2023JF007294. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JF007294
Burns, E. F.*, Rempe, D. M., Parsekian, A. D., Schmidt, L. M., Singha, K., & Barnard, H. R. (2023). Ecohydrologic dynamics of rock moisture in a montane catchment of the Colorado Front Range. Water Resources Research, 59, e2022WR034117. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR034117
Sullivan, T.D.* and Parsekian, A. D. (2023) The effects of temperature on shallow borehole NMR measurements in permafrost. Cold Regions Science and Technology, 211, 103850. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coldregions.2023.103850
Pleasants, M. S.*, Kelleners, T. J., Parsekian, A. D., & Befus, K. M. (2023) A Comparison of Hydrological and Geophysical Calibration Data in Layered Hydrologic Models of Mountain Hillslopes. Water Resources Research, e2022WR033506. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033506
Chen, R.H., Michaelides, R.J., Zhao, Y., Huang, L., Wig, E., Sullivan, T.D., Parsekian, A.D., Zebker, H.A., Moghaddam, M. and Schaefer, K.M., (2023) Permafrost Dynamics Observatory (PDO)–Part II: Joint Retrieval of Permafrost Active Layer Thickness and Soil Moisture from L‐band InSAR and P‐band PolSAR. Earth and Space Science, p.e2022EA002453. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EA002453

Dr. Andrew Parsekian

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR

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Teaching

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Recent Publications