Geophysics Ph.D. Student Kirstie Haynie Awarded Best Poster at GeoPRISMS Meeting
One of Two Students to Receive Honor

Kirstie Haynie, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was awarded Best Student Poster at the 2015 GeoPRISMS Theoretical and Experimental Institute (TEI) on Subduction Cycles and Deformation held October 12-14 at Redondo Beach, Calif. Haynie is working with Assistant Professor Margarete Jadamec in the Geodynamics Research Group and Visualization Lab.

Haynie and one other student received this honor. She was gifted a signed copy of Tectonophysics Special Issue: Moho: 100 years after Andrija Mohorovičić edited by Hans Thybo, Irina Artemieva and Brian Kennett.



Haynie presented her Ph.D. research, which investigates the role of plateau collision-subduction on overriding plate deformation and slab detachment in Alaska. Her poster, “Building the Yakutat Plateau into Models of Flat Slab Subduction in Alaska,” discussed her main research objectives, preliminary 2D gravity models used to constrain the oceanic plateau, and preliminary 2D geodynamic models examining the effects of plate coupling along the plate interface. 


The National Science Foundation, through the GeoPRISMS office at the University of Michigan, funds the TEI where 120 participants, including Haynie, were awarded travel funding as well as onsite expenses. The goal of this conference was to provide a summary of recent progress made in the objectives of the subduction cycles and deformation initiative.

All talks and posters were related to structure and dynamics of subduction zones with topics on slab processes, the incoming plate, the megathrust, the shallow fore-arc, and the mantle wedge and arc crust.