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2026-2027 Jahns Distinguished Lecturer

Dr. Wendy Zhou

Wendy Zhou is a professor of geological engineering and the Director of the GIS & GeoInformatics Program at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, USA. She earned her Ph.D. in geological engineering and her M.S. in computer science from Missouri University of Science and Technology. She also holds an M.S. in geological engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a B.S. in engineering geology from China University of Geosciences. Dr. Zhou began her career at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) as an assistant professor in 2001 and joined Colorado School of Mines after about six years at UAF. Her research interests include: (1) geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing applications in geohazard analysis, environmental impact studies, and natural resource management; (2) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and machine learning applications in ground movement monitoring and landslide assessment; (3) rock mass characterization; and (4) numerical modeling of the ground thermal regime and stress-strain distribution in rock or soil masses. Firsthand field datasets are central to her research, providing key inputs for geospatial analytical modeling and for verifying results. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in the US (especially in Colorado) and overseas, including the Netherlands and Peru, and has made three field trips to the Tibetan Plateau in China.

Dr. Zhou has supervised approximately 100 graduate students (including Ph.D., M.S., M.E., M.S.-NT, and graduate certificate students), of whom 12 are Ph.D. students. She is a prolific author of peer-reviewed publications. She has delivered many invited talks (including keynote speeches) and numerous presentations at national and international conferences. In addition, she has co-authored 10 maps and datasets published by the Colorado Geological Survey. Since 2014, she has served as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing and has been a Topic Editor for Remote Sensing since 2020. She has also guest-edited for various scientific journals. She is a sought-after reviewer for scientific journals, NSF, NASA, and DOE proposals, and a proposal review panelist for NSF and NASA.

Dr. Zhou has held leadership and administrative roles at multiple levels, including within her department, the university, and professional organizations. Notably, she served as Dean of Graduate Studies at the Colorado School of Mines from 2017 to 2020. She founded the GIS & GeoInformatics Program at the Colorado School of Mines and has led it since 2018. She also served as co-chair of the department’s promotion and tenure committee for five years. Since 2022, she has chaired the Committee for the Burwell Jr. Best Paper Award of the Geological Society of America’s Engineering Geology Division.

Available presentations:

  • A Case Study of Novel Landslide Activity Recognition Using ALOS-1 InSAR on the Western Hillslope of Ragged Mountain in Gunnison County, Colorado, USA
  • GIS-Based Landslide (and Debris Flow) Susceptibility Analyses: Case Studies at Different Scales
  • Monitoring Ground Subsidence from Underground Excavation or Tunneling in Urban Environments Using Advanced InSAR Techniques
  • Sustainability of Earth Dams and Levees (EDLs): Case Studies in the Lower Mississippi Valley, USA, and Rhine–Meuse Delta, Netherlands
  • Formation Process of a Large Paleolandslide-dammed Lake and Sedimentary Evidence of Outburst Deposits on the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau: Constraints from OSL and 14C Dating
  • Flood Hazards in the Context of Land Use and Land Cover and Communities at the Intersection of Flood Risk and Social Vulnerability: Case Studies in Lagos, Nigeria, and New Orleans, USA
  • Design and Construction of a Centralized Geospatial Infrastructure for Geological, Surface Water, Groundwater, and Dynamic System Models for the Piceance Basin, Northwestern Colorado

Learn more about the above presentations and short talks available.

Check the AEG calendar for upcoming scheduled presentations.

Request a presentation:

To book a Jahns lecture, contact Wendy Zhou, Ph.D., at [email protected].