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Junle Jiang

Junle Jiang

Assistant Professor

My research aims to understand the dynamics and societal impacts of deformation and seismicity in the Earth’s crust due to natural processes or human activities, including microseismicity, fault creep, major earthquakes, ground uplift and subsidence, and their interactions in geothermal fields, crustal faults, and subduction zones. I combine analyses of geodetic datasets, e.g., Global Positioning System (GPS) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), with seismological observations and laboratory-based computational modeling to study these geophysical processes over multiple time scales (from seconds to centuries) and their behavior under transient or steady environmental forcing. Through such interdisciplinary efforts, I hope to further our understanding and assessment of natural hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis, and improve the monitoring and mitigation of induced hazards during geo-energy explorations such as hydraulic fracturing and geothermal energy production.


  • Ph.D., 2016, Geophysics, California Institute of Technology, USA
  • Ph.D. minor, 2014, Computational Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, USA
  • M.S., 2011, Geophysics, California Institute of Technology, USA
  • B.S., 2009, Physics, Peking University, China

  • Computational geophysics
  • Crustal dynamics
  • Earthquake physics
  • Rock mechanics
  • Space geodesy
  • Inverse theory

  • Physical Geology for Scientists and Engineers
  • Computational Geophysics
  • Mentored Research Experience
  • Remote Sensing for Crustal Geophysics
  • Machine Learning in Geoscience

  • Jiang, J., Y. Bock, and E. Klein (2021), Coevolving early afterslip and aftershock signatures of a San Andreas fault rupture, Science Advances, 7, doi:10.1126/sciadv.abc1606.
  • Jiang, J., & Lohman, R. B. (2020), Coherence-guided InSAR deformation analysis in the presence of ongoing land surface changes in the Imperial Valley, California, Remote Sens. Environ., 112160, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2020.112160.
  • Erickson, B., J. Jiang, M. Barall, N. Lapusta, E. M. Dunham, R. Harris, L. Abrahams, K. Allison,  J.-P. Ampuero, S. Barbot, C. Cattania, A. Elbanna, Y. Fialko, B. Idini, J. Kozdon, V. Lambert, Y. Liu, Y. Luo, X. Ma, P. Segall, P. Shi, and M. Wei (2020), The Community Code Verification Exercise for Simulating Sequences of Earthquakes and Aseismic Slip (SEAS), Seismo. Res. Lett, doi:10/ggj42s.
  • Jiang, J. and N. Lapusta (2017), Connecting depth limits of interseismic locking, microseismicity, and large earthquakes in models of long-term fault slip, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 122, 6491–6523, doi:10.1002/2017JB014030.
  • Jiang, J., and M. Simons (2016), Probabilistic imaging of tsunamigenic seafloor deformation during the 2011 Tohoku-oki Earthquake, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 121, 9050–9076, doi:10.1002/2016JB013760.
  • Jiang, J., and Y. Fialko (2016), Reconciling seismicity and geodetic locking depths on the Anza section of the San Jacinto fault, Geophys. Res. Lett., 43, 10663–10671, doi:10.1002/2016GL071113.
  • Jiang, J., and N. Lapusta (2016), Deeper penetration of large earthquakes on seismically quiescent faults, Science, 352(6291), 1293–1297, doi:10.1126/science.aaf1496.
  • Duputel, Z., J. Jiang, R. Jolivet, M. Simons, L. Rivera, J.-P. Ampuero, B. Riel, S. E. Owen, A. W. Moore, S. V. Samsonov, F. O. Culaciati, and S. E. Minson (2015), The Iquique earthquake sequence of April 2014: Bayesian modeling accounting for prediction uncertainty, Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 7949–7957, doi:10.1002/2015GL065402.