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High Performance Computing (HPC) at UH

Researcher of the Month
Prof. Patricia Fryer

Prof. Patricia Fryer

Prof. Fryer's current research involves characterizing the features of the Mariana Trench region, and in particular, seafloor mud volcanoes. She recently participated in an international research cruise to the Mariana Trench with her team, including Tom Fedenczuk, one of her grad students, to collect bathymetry data to characterize features of these Mariana forearc seamounts. They process the data using Jaws, the super cluster at MHPCC (rated number 41 in the June 2008 release of the Top 500 Supercomputers in the world), to visualize the mud volcanoes forming huge mountains on the sea floor. See a summary of their work. In this picture she is holding a piece of a chimney structure from one of the volcanoes while showing us a visualization of the chimneys from one of the seamounts in the Mariana forearc.

Professor Fryer received her B.S. in Geology from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA, then followed up with an M.S. in Geology and Geophysics at the University of Hawai'i. After working as a Data Technician for three years, she decided to return to school and get her Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics (from University of Hawai'i). She then went to Princeton for a year while finishing her Dissertation before returning to UH, where she has been now for 27 years.

She currently co-teaches Accelerated Introduction to Geology to graduate students. She has taught graduate seminars in Convergent Plate Margin Tectonics, Island Arc Geology, and undergraduate courses in Introductory Geology, Geology of the Hawaiian Islands, Mineralogy, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, and has designed an E-focus course "Natural Hazards: Geoethics and the Layman" to be offered Spring '09.

Go to Prof. Fryer's website at http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pfryer/ to read more about her research interests.