Dr Qi Ou

  • Global Change Institute
  • School of GeoSciences
  • College of Science & Engineering

Contact details

Address

Street

School of GeoSciences, Drummond Street

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9XP

Biography

Background

I joined Edinburgh as a Lecturer in Radar Remote Sensing in February 2024. I was born and raised in China until age 15 and went to Singapore for high school. I came to the UK in 2012 to pursue an integrated Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. I then went to the University of Oxford to pursue a DPhil in Earth Sciences on the crustal strain and seismic hazard of the northeast Tibetan Plateau. Under the supervision of Professors Richard Walker and Barry Parsons, I gained experience modelling 100-year-old analogue seismograms, analysing drainage offsets for cumulative slip patterns along strike-slip faults, mapping strain rate concentration with Sentinel-1 InSAR time series, and constraining seismic hazard using the crustal strain rate and seismic records. I finished my PhD during COVID and spent one more year as a COMET postdoc at Oxford to develop new methods for InSAR processing, especially in frame mosaicing, uncertainty analysis, strain rate mapping, and interpretations. I then spent 1.5 years as a COMET Research Fellow at the University of Leeds working with Dr John Elliott and Professor Tim Wright on the large-scale velocity and strain rate mapping over the entire Tien Shan region, for seismic hazard analysis with the Global Earthquake Models. I am now interested in combining big earth observation data and an interdisciplinary approach to understand the interplay between active tectonics, climate change and anthropogenic activities. 

CV

PDF icon 155556.pdf

Qualifications

BA (Cantab)

MSci (Cantab)

DPhil (Oxon)

Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy 

Postgraduate teaching

Active Remote Sensing - MSc in Earth Observation and Geoinformation Management

 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Lu Liang - MSc in Geoinformation Management

Ariel Adinugraha - MSc in Earth Observation and Geoinformation Management

Donny Wahyudi - PhD in Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences

Charlie McMillan - MSci in Earth Sciences (Oxford)

Research summary

I apply big data analytics to Earth Observation data to capture the Earth’s surface deformation at continental scales, researching processes in the lithosphere, cryosphere and hydrosphere caused by active tectonics, global warming, and human activities. These processes can happen at the same time and interactively. Each carries its associated hazard and resources to different stakeholders. Therefore, it is crucial to disentangle these signals in space and time, so that we can model the tectonic, hydrologic and anthropogenic processes separately and examine their interplay at different spatial and temporal scales. Such fundamental understanding would be key to enhancing our ability to estimate seismic hazard, track climate change and promote sustainable development.

Conference details

Qi Ou, John Elliott, Yasser Maghsoudi, Chris Rollins, Milan Lazecky, Tim Wright (2023), Tectonic, Climatic and Anthropogenic Deformation over the Tianshan mountains Oral, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

Qi Ou, John Elliott, Yasser Maghsoudi, Chris Rollins, Milan Lazecky, Tim Wright (2023), Large-scale velocity mapping over the Tianshan mountains Oral, Fringe Meeting, Leeds, UK.

Qi Ou, Simon Daout, Barry Parsons, Tim Wright, Jonathan Weiss, Lin Shen, Milan Lazecky, Yessar Mehrani (2021), Say Bye to Blobbiness: Getting the Sharpest Strain Rate Map out of InSAR Velocities A Case Study of the NE Tibetan Plateau. Oral, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

• 18th most-watched out of over 1500 talks at the 2021 AGU Fall Meeting.

Qi Ou, Galina Kulikova, Jingxing Yu, Barry Parsons, Richard Walker (2018), Magnitude of the 1920 Haiyuan Earthquake re-estimated using Geological and Seismological Methods. Poster, the 9th International INQUA meeting on Palaeoseismology, Active Tectonics and Archaeoseismology, Greece. (Best Poster Award)

Invited speaker

Qi Ou, John Elliott, Yasser Maghsoudi, Chris Rollins, Milan Lazecky, Tim Wright, Barry Parsons (2024), Monitoring Earth’s deformation from space for seismic hazard, climate change, flood risk and sustainable development. SAGE/GAGE Workshop, Beijing University, Zhejiang University, Nanjing University, Wuhan University, University of Science and Technology of China, Chang'an University, Hehai University, China University of Geosciences @ Wuhan, Institute of Geology @ China Earthquakes Administration, Aerospace Information Research Institute @ Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Qi Ou, Barry Parsons, Chris Rollins, Tim Wright, John Elliott (2022), From InSAR-derived Strain Rate Fields to Seismic Hazard over the Northeast Tibetan Plateau What does Past Seismicity Say? American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.

Qi Ou, Simon Daout, Barry Parsons, Tim Wright, Jonathan Weiss, Lin Shen, Milan Lazecky, Yessar Mehrani (2022), Large-scale strain mapping over the northeast Tibetan Plateau. COMET Webinar.

Organiser

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2023 Ou, Guns, Weiss, Zeng, Strain Rate Mapping and Earthquake Hazard.

Seismological Society of America, Annual Meeting 2022 Bent, Hellweg, Hwang, Lewis, Ou, Everything Old is New Again Resurging Use of Analog Data.

Seismological Society of America, Annual Meeting 2021 Euler, Young, Moya, Lee, Ou, Lewis, Dewey, Back to the Future: Innovative New Research with Legacy Seismic Data.

Papers delivered

Tim Wright, Greg Houseman, Jin Fang, Yasser Maghsoudi, Andy Hooper, John Elliott, Lucy Evans, Milan Lazecky, Qi Ou, Barry Parsons, Chris Rollins, Lin Shen, Hua Wang. High-resolution geodetic strain rate field reveals dynamics of the India-Eurasia collision (under revision for Science)

Qi Ou, Galina Kulikova, Frank Kru ̈ger (2023), Earthquake source parameters determination using analogue seismic records. In Austin Elliott & Christopher Gru ̈tzner (Eds.), Understanding Past Earth- quakes. (book chapter, in print)

Neill Marshall, Qi Ou, et al., (2023): Seismotectonic aspects of the Ms 7.3 1948 October 5th Aga- bat (Ashgabat) earthquake, Trkmenistan: right-lateral rupture across multiple fault segments, and continuing urban hazard, Geophysical Journal International, https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggad488

Qi Ou, Milan Lazecky, Scott Watson, Yasser Maghsoudi, Tim Wright (2023): 3D Displacements and Strain from the 2023 February Turkey Earthquakes, version 1. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, 14 March 2023. https://dx.doi.org/10.5285/df93e92a3adc46b9a5c4bd3a547cd242

Jing Liu, Jing Xu, Qi Ou, Longfei Han, Zijun Wang, Zhigang Shao, Peizhen Zhang, Wenqian Yao, Peng Wang (2023). Discussion on the magnitude overestimation of the 1920 Haiyuan earthquake. Acta Seismologica Sinica, 45(4): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1016/10.11939/jass.20220051

Qi Ou, Simon Daout, Jonathan R. Weiss, Lin Shen, Milan Lazecky, Tim J. Wright, Barry Parsons (2022). Large-scale Interseismic Strain Mapping of the NE Tibetan Plateau from Sentinel-1 Interfer- ometry. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127, https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB024176

• Highlighted in AGU’s Read the paper with the author September 2022 series.

Jin Fang, Qi Ou*, Tim J. Wright, Ryo Okuwaki, Ruth Amey, Tim Craig, John Elliott, Andy Hooper, Milan Lazecky, Yasser Maghsoudi (2022) Earthquake Cycle Deformation Associated with the 2021 Mw7.4 Maduo (Eastern Tibet) Earthquake: An Intrablock Event on a Slow-Slipping Fault from Sentinel-1 InSAR and Teleseismic Data. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 127, e2022JB024268 https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB024268

Qi Ou, (2021). Crustal Strain and Seismic Hazard of the NE Tibetan Plateau. Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, shorturl.at/pqB02

Qi Ou, Galina Kulikova, Jingxing Yu, Austin Elliott, Barry Parsons, Richard Walker (2020). Magni- tude of the 1920 Haiyuan Earthquake re-estimated using Seismological and Geomorphological Methods. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth. 125, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JB019244

• Top 10% downloaded papers of JGR: Solid Earth in 2020. Received 914 downloads in six months, and 1722 downloads by 9 Aug 2021.

Siyu Wang, Zhikun Ren, Chuanyong Wu, Qiyun Lei, Wenyu Gong, Qi Ou, Huiping Zhang, Guangxue Ren, Chuanyou Li (2019). DEM generation from Worldview-2 stereo imagery and vertical accuracy as- sessment for its application in active tectonics. Geomorphology, (336), pp 107-118, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomo

Xiaobo Li, Qi Ou, Yini Wang, Han Wang, Ming Yang, Meisheng Zhang (2020). The Precambrian stratigraphic sequence and unconformities in Xingcheng area of Liaoning Province, China, with discus- sion of the sedimentary-Paleogeographic evolution of the Southeastern Yanshan Taphrogenic Trough Basin. Acta Sedimentologica Sinica, 4, 687711, https://doi.org/10.14027/j.issn.1000-0550.2020.004

This article was published on