GRADUATE RESEARCH ASSISTANT
Erin Heilman was a Ph.D. student who used mantle convection models to investigate plate tectonics. Before joining The University of Texas at Austin, she was the Oklahoma State University Niblack Research Scholar, through which she conducted undergraduate research of basement rifting margins using aeromagnetic data.
At the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, she studied computer modeling of mantle convection to create self-consistent plate tectonics using a visco-plastic damage rheology. She contributed to the open-source mantle convection code, ASPECT, which she used in her research. From January 2021 following her graduation, she co-organized UTIG’s Discussion Hour seminar series.
INTERESTS
Mantle convection, computer modeling, plate tectonics, basement rifting, reactivated fault zones
SUPERVISOR
Thorsten Becker
ACADEMICS
Ph.D., Geodynamics, The University of Texas at Austin, 2023
B.Sc., Geology, Oklahoma State University, 2018