SUMMIT Lab
Structure, Uplift & Mountain-building: Mantle-to-surface Interactions in Tectonics
My research group, the SUMMIT Lab, currently includes two undergraduate students working on the URSA-funded project, "Unravelling the Tectono-Thermal History of the Brooks Range and Its Relationship with Volcanogenic Cu Deposits" in collaboration with Dr. Marisa Acosta and Dr. Florian Hoffman at UAF.
I am also developing new research projects in Southeast Alaska and South-Central Alaska with other UAF faculty and geologists from the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys. My long-term research in the Andes involves collaborations with researchers from the US, Canada, Chile, and Italy.
I am currently recruiting an M.S. or Ph.D. student to join my research group in Fall 2027. Potential projects focus on the tectonic evolution of Alaska, integrating field geology and thermochronology. I encourage motivated students with a background in geology to contact me at vpaivamuller@alaska.edu
Eli Ludwig
Undergraduate student
My research is focused in the orogenic evolution of the southern part of the Brooks Range, gathering Ar/Ar thermochronology data to better understand the timing of tectonic events. I am currently interested in economic geology and ore forming processes as well as how these minerals are located and extracted. Outside of school I love exploring Alaska by any means available to me. I do as much backcountry skiing, snowmachining, and fat biking as I can in the winter and enjoy fishing, hiking and camping during the summer months.
Margo Bradberry
Undergraduate student
Margo's research focuses on low-temperature thermochronology on samples from the northern Brooks Range, to understand fold-and-thrust belt evolution and relationships with foreland basin deposition.