Photo of Samantha Hansen

Samantha E. Hansen

Assistant Department Chair
Professor

Education

  • Ph.D., Geology and Geophysics, The University of California, Santa Cruz, 2007
  • M.S., Geology and Geophysics, The University of Wisconsin, 2002
  • B.S., Geological Engineering, The University of Wisconsin, 2000

Research Areas

  • Geophysics, Tectonics, and Structural Geology

Research Interests

My research is driven by the underlying goal to advance our understanding of fundamental geodynamic processes, such as volcanism, mountain building, continental rifting, and craton formation. To this end, I employ a wide range of geological and geophysical tools emphasizing earthquake seismology, active tectonics, and the analysis of seismic data to investigate structure and to infer associated Earth processes. Past and current research projects have focused on a variety of different geographic locations including Hawaii, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Greece, Greenland, and Antarctica.  I have also expanded my research to investigate deep Earth structure, particularly ultra-low velocity zones along the core-mantle boundary.

Research Group Members

  • Sophia Gaal, M.S.
  • Elizabeth Alzate Gutierrez, Ph.D.
  • Brian Liberato, M.S. (graduated: August 2026)
  • Long Ho, Ph.D. (graduated: August 2026)
  • Hesam Saeidi, Ph.D. (graduated: August 2025)
  • Kayode Agboola, M.S. (graduated: August 2023)
  • Ashish Kumar, M.S. (graduated: June 2021)
  • Sarah Carson, M.S. (graduated: December 2018)
  • Jordan Graw, Ph.D. (graduated: May 2017)
  • Greg Brenn, M.S. (graduated: December 2016)
  • Lindsey Kenyon, M.S. (graduated: December 2014)
  • GEO 101: The Dynamic Earth
  • GEO 369: Introduction Geophysics
  • GEO 407/507: Seismology
  • GEO 435/535/635: Honors and Graduate Seminar in Geology
  • GEO 542: Geodynamics

Recent Publications (see https://sites.ua.edu/shansen/publications/ for a full list)

  • Ho, L.M., J.L. Sanchez-Roldan, S.E. Hansen, and J.I. Walter, Upper-mantle earthquakes beneath East Antarctica, Science, 392, doi: 10.1126/science.aea9895, 2026. Ho_etal_Science_2026
  • Hansen, S.E. and E.L. Emry, East Antarctic tectonic basin structure and its implications for ice-sheet modeling and sea-level projections, Nature Comm. Earth Environ., 6, doi: 10.1038/s43247-025-02140-4, 2025.  Hansen_Emry_NatureCommEE_2025
  • Ho, L.M., J.I. Walter, S.E. Hansen, J.L. Sanchez-Roldan, and Z. Peng, Evaluating Automated Seismic Event Detection Approaches: An Application to Victoria Land, East Antarctica, J. Geophys. Res. Machine Learn. Comp., 1, doi: 10.1029/2024JH000185, 2024. Ho_etal_JGR_2024
  • Agboola, K.J., S.E. Hansen, E.J. Garnero, S. Rost, M. Li, and S.-H. Shim, Ultra-low Velocity Zones beneath the Southern Hemisphere Imaged with Double-Array Stacking of PcP Waveforms, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 129, doi: 10.1029/2023JB028170, 2024.  Agboola_etal_JGR_2024
  • Saeidi, H., S.E. Hansen, A.A. Nyblade, and R. Haag, Mantle Structure beneath the Damara Belt in south-central Africa imaged using Adaptively Parameterized P-wave Tomography, J. Geophys. Res. Solid Earth, 129, doi: 10.1029/2023JB027965, 2024.  Saeidi_etal_JGR_2024
  • Hansen, S.E., E.J. Garnero, M. Li, S.-H. Shim, and S. Rost, Globally Distributed Subducted Materials along the Earth’s Core-Mantle Boundary: Implications for Ultra-low Velocity Zones, Sci. Adv., 9, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.add4838, 2023.  Hansen_etal_SciAdv_2023
  • Saeidi, H., S.E. Hansen, and A.A. Nyblade, Deep Mantle Influence on the Cameroon Volcanic Lines, Geochem. Geophys. Geosys., 24, doi: 10.1029/2022GC010621, 2023. Saeidi_G-cubed_2023
  • Hansen, S.E., E.J. Garnero, and S. Rost, Historical Interstation Pattern Referencing (HIPR): an application to PcP waves recorded in the Antarctic for ULVZ imaging, J. Geophys. Res., 126, doi: 10.1029/2021JB022741, 2021. Hansen_etal_JGR_2021
  • Hansen, S.E., S.E. Carson, E.J. Garnero, S. Rost, and S. Yu, Investigating Ultra-low Velocity Zones in the Southern Hemisphere using an Antarctic Dataset, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 536, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116142, 2020. Hansen_etal_EPSL_2020