Rate My Professor Steve Gao

Gao specializes in geophysics, with research focusing on earthquake seismology, seismological investigations of the Earth’s crust and mantle using seismic tomography, anisotropy, and receiver function analyses, crustal deformation, earthquake hazard prediction and mitigation, and exploration geophysics. His projects employ computationally intensive imaging techniques incorporating artificial intelligence to explore the Earth’s subsurface for resource discovery and insights into tectonic evolution, spanning depths from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals including Nature and Science, many featuring his graduate students as lead authors, and presented at over 250 conferences. Gao has led or co-led approximately 40 funded research projects from the National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society, and petroleum industry, supporting investigations in Africa, Asia, Central America, and North America. He has mentored 19 Ph.D. students to graduation as primary advisor and 14 as co-advisor. His honors include multiple Missouri S&T awards for faculty excellence in teaching, research, and service, the 2018 Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and election as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2012. Gao is a member of the American Geophysical Union, Seismological Society of America, Geological Society of America, and Society of Exploration Geophysicists.