Earthquake Seismology

Prof. Mohit Agrawal is an associate professor in the department of Applied Geophysics at Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad. His primary research interests and expertise comprise various aspects of earthquake seismology and seismic hazard analysis. Dr. Agrawal has been working towards finding answers to geophysical problems that lend themselves to, or can benefit from, statistical and probabilistic approaches. He obtained his PhD degree from Baylor University, USA, where he successfully defended his thesis titled “Multi Objective Optimization in Seismology” in 2016 under the supervision of Prof. Jay Pulliam (Baylor) and Prof. Mrinal K. Sen (Univ. of Texas at Austin). Prior to his PhD, Agrawal earned a Master of Science and Technology (M.Sc. Tech.) degree in Applied Geophysics from Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad in 2011. He is an active member of professional geophysical and geological societies, including the American Geophysical Union, the Indian Geophysical Union, and the Seismological Society of America. During his PhD at Baylor, Agrawal was awarded a student research grant of US$2000 from the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies (GCAGS) for his research proposal titled "Receiver Functions and Surface Wave Dispersion Modeling of the Crust and Upper Mantle beneath Texas’ Gulf Coast". In 2017, he was granted funding for a total of Rs. 43 Lakhs in the form of an “Early Career Research Award” from SERB to underwrite the deployment of broadband seismic stations on the Shillong Plateau. Recently, in 2020, he was granted funding for a total of Rs. 20 Lakhs in the form of a “Core Research Grant Award” to develop algorithm for joint inversion of multiple datasets. He was also awarded with “MATRICS” award to develop a technique to efficiently generate HVSR curves for seismic site characterization. During his PhD at Baylor he worked with colleagues to install and operate a 420-km-long deployment of 22 broadband seismic stations across the Texas/Gulf of Mexico passive margin. During his tenure at IIT(ISM), he has supervised ten M.Tech. (Earthquake Science and Engineering) and thirty one M.Sc. Tech (Applied Geophysics) students. Three students have finished their PhDs under his supervision and he is guiding five PhD students currently. Dr. Agrawal has attended several international and national conferences including those of the European Geophysical Union (EGU), American Geophysical Union (USA), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (USA), Seismological Society of America, U.S. National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) in Albuquerque (New Mexico), and the Indian Geophysical Union Meeting (India). Agrawal has engaged in geoscience research at the University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX; University of Wyoming in Laramie, WY; Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO; and Baylor University in Waco, TX.