Alison H. Graettinger
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Recent media coverage

  • Al Jazeera English interview The first hours of the Geldingadalir eruption 
  • UMKC EXPLORE magazine feature "Mission to Maars"
  • NPR's Maddie about Science "To safely study volcanoes, scientists bring the blast to them" 
  • UB Reporter "Scientists brew lava and blow it up to better understand volcanoes" 
  • UB Reporter #uBLASTworkshop
  • UMKC Today "Dnyamic Duos"
  • UB Reporter "Geologists make their own lava to prep for explosive experiments"
  • Washington Post "Why one college professor is bubbling up big vats of homemade lava"
  • EGU Blog: GeoLog "GeoTalk: Explosive testing with Greg Valentine" 
  • Research Highlights in EOS  "When do magma-water eruptions breach the surface?"
  • Live Science "Mini-maars: How to mimic a volcanic eruption" 
  • Rock-Head Sciences Blog "A day in the life of a geologist series "
  • University of Puget Sound Alumni Magazine "Blowing stuff up in the name of Science" 
  • Nature News  "Experimental Volcanoes Make a Blast"
  • Magma cum Laude (AGU Blogs) "Starting off the summer with a bang"
  • Sonder et al. 2013 "Large-scale blast experiments investigate subsurface explosions" EOS, AGU weekly magazine.
  • Nature News "Magma on Ice" 

Other Talks

  • What is a volcano? Kansas City Trapped at home series, 2020
  • Natural Disaster Day with Central Middle ESL students. Full day of hands on activities studying natural hazards 2020
  • Computer Science Institute for Women at UMKC 2018
  • Women in STEAM panel on graduate school in a male-dominated field. Panel member, 2017. 
  • South Valley Middle School, Yellowstone Projects, Liberty MO, 2017
  • Glenn Duncan STEM Academy, Reno, NV, January 2014. 
  • Volunteer at AGU Exploration Station: Volcanoes, December 2013-2015.
  • Metro Detroit Lego League Volcanic Ash team, October 2013.
  • St. Stephen Middle School, New Brunswick, Canada, March 2013 & 2015. 


I am always happy to chat with students at various levels about my research and volcanoes in general. I've given these talks in person, and via Skype. 

Collaborative Education Projects 

Comparative learning with geology as examples:
I have worked on a collaborative study investigating the ways students learn new fields such as optical mineralogy with the Psychology Departments at Carnegie Mellon University and Temple University. This ongoing project seeks to evaluate comparative teaching techniques using similar and disparate analogues drawn from real examples of learning to interpret thin sections of igneous minerals. My role is as the geology consultant and source of the teaching materials required for the experiments. 

Online course module

> Class module for upper level undergraduate and graduate volcanology courses about maar-diatremes, one of the most common volcanic landforms on Earth produced through the explosive interaction of magma and groundwater. The course includes videos and exercises and is housed at Vhub.org. 

Sessions chaired

2023 Volcanism in subaqueous, emergent, coastal and glacial settings. IAVCEI 2023
2021 The dynamics and hazards of hydrovolcanic systems. Geological Society of America.
2021 Ultramafic and mafic magmatism. North Central South Central regional Geological Society of America Meeting. Springfield Missouri.
2020 Morphology and structure of maars and monogenetic volcanoes. 8th International Maar Conference, Petropavlosk-Kamchasky, Russia
2019 Hydrovolcanic, submarine and Subglacial Eruptions: Exploring Hydrosphere-Volcano Interactions. American Geophysical Union 2019 annual meeting. San Francisco, USA.
2019 Monogenetic volcanism: Diversity, processes, tectonic contexts, risk and geoheritage. IUGG 2019 Montreal, Canada.
2018 Phreatomagmatism: How do we tell and why do we care? Cities on Volcanoes conference Naples Italy.
2018 Developments in magma water interaction: Field work, experiments, and computations. American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, Washington DC.
2013 Volcano-ice interactions on Earth and planetary volcanology. IAVCEI conference, Kagoshima, Japan.

​Volcano-ice interactions and Planetary Volcanism, IAVCEI 2013.

Videos about experiments

This short video explains the basics of our large scale explosion experiments during the May 2013 series at the Center for Geohazard Studies, University at Buffalo. The video has been used to advertise the field station as a user facility as well as in introductory Earth Science courses as an example of active research and experimental approaches. Available for use with attribution to the Center for Geohazards Studies, University at Buffalo. 


The video was edited and interview filmed by Jeffery Lavin of the University at Buffalo Media Studies department. 
Image: Kīlauea Hawaii, 2009
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