Kristine Marie Larson is an American academic. She is Emeritus Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado sy ...

. Her research considers the development of algorithms for high-precision

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

(GPS) data analysis. She was the first to demonstrate that GPS could be used to detect

seismic wave A seismic wave is a wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth. It can result from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide, and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic energy ...

s. She was awarded the 2015

European Geosciences Union The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet." The organisation has hea ...

Christiaan Huygens Medal.

Early life and education

Larson was born in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

. Her father Valdemar F. Larson, "Swede", worked on the Deep Sea Drilling Project. She studied engineering science and mechanics at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and graduated in 1985. Larson joined the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

for her doctoral studies, and earned a PhD in

geophysics Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The term ''geophysics'' so ...

at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1990. Her dissertation evaluated the accuracy of the

(GPS) and was supervised by Duncan Agnew. She was a member of the technical staff at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

, where she worked with the team that developed the GPS infrared positioning system, GIPSY.

Research and career

Larson was appointed to the faculty at the

in 1990. She developed new algorithms for the analysis of

(GPS) data. She used GPS to identify plate velocities, boundary zone deformation and ice sheet motion. She completed a visiting professorship at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Larson started to develop GPS for new applications in

geoscience Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four sphere ...

in 2000. She led a team of scientists that was the first to demonstrate that GPS could be used to detect

s in 2003. Her approach was used to evaluate earthquake triggering near the

Denali Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the th ...

rupture zone. GPS seismology is now used routinely in earth surveillance, including in the monitoring of

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...

s as well as in

seismic source A seismic source is a device that generates controlled seismic energy used to perform both reflection and refraction seismic surveys. A seismic source can be simple, such as dynamite, or it can use more sophisticated technology, such as a speci ...

models. Larson has also worked on hydro geodesy, as well as advising the

US Federal Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fed ...

on geodetic infrastructure. Larson noticed that there were errors caused by the interference of GPS signals, which correlated with the water content in the surfaces close to the receiving antenna. She showed that

geodetic Geodesy ( ) is the Earth science of accurately measuring and understanding Earth's figure (geometric shape and size), orientation in space, and gravity. The field also incorporates studies of how these properties change over time and equivale ...

GPS receivers can be used to detect the

water content Water content or moisture content is the quantity of water contained in a material, such as soil (called soil moisture), rock, ceramics, crops, or wood. Water content is used in a wide range of scientific and technical areas, and is expressed as ...

of soil, as well as the depth of

snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

snow water equivalent Snow science addresses how snow forms, its distribution, and processes affecting how snowpacks change over time. Scientists improve storm forecasting, study global snow cover and its effect on climate, glaciers, and water supplies around the worl ...

, and vegetation water content. She first demonstrated this capability in 2012, when she transformed a GPS network to be capable of interferometric reflectometry (GPS IR). GPS-IR was used in the

Earthscope Earthscope was an National Science Foundation (NSF) funded earth science program that, from 2003-2018, used geological and geophysical techniques to explore the structure and evolution of the North American continent and to understand the proces ...

Plate Boundary Observatory. Larson also showed that it is possible to measure

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...

changes, which allows the monitoring of subsidence and

ground motion Ground motion is the movement of the earth's surface from earthquakes or explosions. Ground motion is produced by seismic waves that are generated by sudden slip on a fault or sudden pressure at the explosive source and travel through the earth a ...

caused by

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

s. These GPS receivers act as

tide gauge A tide gauge is a device for measuring the change in sea level relative to a vertical datum. It its also known as mareograph, marigraph, sea-level recorder and limnimeter. When applied to freshwater continental water bodies, the instrument ma ...

s, and can be tied to a

terrestrial reference frame A terrestrial reference frame (TRF) is the reference frame as one views from Earth, or from the surface of another Earth-like planet. A TRF affects the way humans perceive almost everything from day to day because as they live on the Earth, as ...

. She used them to monitor tidal levels in

Kachemak Bay Kachemak Bay ( Dena'ina: ''Tika Kaq’'') is a 40-mi-long (64 km) arm of Cook Inlet in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southwest side of the Kenai Peninsula. The communities of Homer, Halibut Cove, Seldovia, Nanwalek, Port Graha ...

, and found that GPS was in good agreement with records from traditional

s. Larson showed that the strength of the GPS signal is correlated to the density of

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to refer ...

. In 2015 she became the first woman to win the

Christiaan Huygens Medal. In 2017 she became a

Humboldt Fellow The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the German government, government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Foreign Office (Germany), Federal Foreign Office, ...

GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, also known as GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potsdam or just GFZ, is the national research center for Earth Sciences in Germany, located on the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam, in the German federal state of Branden ...

. She became an Emeritus Professor at the

in 2018.

Awards and honours

* 2006:

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science The is an Independent Administrative Institution in Japan, established for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities.JSPSweb page History The Japan Society for ...

Award,

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...

* 2006:

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's a ...

Geodesy Award * 2007:

Bowie Lecture * 2011: 150th Jubilee Visiting Professor,

Chalmers University of Technology Chalmers University of Technology ( sv, Chalmers tekniska högskola, often shortened to Chalmers) is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international leve ...

* 2011:

Fellow * 2013:

Faculty Assembly Research Award * 2014: Fulbright Specialist, Mohammed V University at Agdal * 2014: Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Creativity Prize for Water * 2015:

Christiaan Huygens Medal * 2017: Humboldt Foundation Research Prize * 2017: Chalmers University of Technology Honorary Doctorate * 2017:

Governor's Award for High Impact Research * 2018:

Research Lecture * 2019: Visiting Scholar, Earthquake Research Institute,

* 2020: Fulbright Research Scholar,

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first prop ...

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Larson, Kristine M. Women geophysicists Geodesists American geologists American geodesists American geophysicists University of Colorado Boulder faculty Scripps Institution of Oceanography alumni Harvard University alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Writers from California Living people