Gabriele Morra

Gabriele Morra graduated from the Physics Department of the University of Rome 1 "La Sapienza" in 1999 and then moved to take a PhD in Computational Geodynamics from the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 2005.

After two two years post-doctoral experiences, one at the Institute of Computer Science also at ETH where he learned parallel computing, and one at the school of geosciences in Italy at the University of Roma 3, he was awarded the Advanced Researcher Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, with which he went to work at the University of Sydney, Australia.

In 2011 he was offered a Research Professor position at the Seoul National University, S. Korea, where he remained until 2013 when he took a faculty position at UL Lafayette, jointly in the Department of Physics and the School of Geosciences, where he was tenured in 2019.

PhD in Computational Geodynamics, 2004
ETH Zürich (CH)

Laurea in Physics, equivalent to BS+MS Physics, 1999
University “La Sapienza” Rome (IT)

Dr. Morra's research interests include:

• Planetary Interiors
• Planetary Dynamics
• Volcanology
• Origin of Plate Tectonics
• Fluid Dynamics

• P.M. Gunawardana, P. Chowdhury, G. Morra and P.A. Cawood, 2024 Correlating the mantle cooling with tectonic transitions on Archean Earth, Geology, https://doi.org/10.1130/G51874.1
• Batubo, P., G. Morra, D. Oppo, and A. Moore, 2024, A Medium‐Sized Paleo‐Tsunami Reconstruction by a Deep Neural Network Processing Sedimentary Deposits. Earth and Space Science 11, no. 1: e2023EA003216.
• J. Kuang, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, T. Kusky, S. Jiang, H. Yao, S. Qi F, 2023, Metamorphic constraints on Archean tectonics, Precambrian Research, 397, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precamres.2023.107195
• L. Honarbakhsh, G. Morra, 2023, Classification of IR Images of Small Eruptions at the Erebus Volcano, Antarctica, with Zernike moments and Support Vector Machine, Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth, 128, e2022JB025728. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JB025728
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, 2023, The Lattice Boltzmann Method to simulate mantle convection with highly nonlinear rheology, Artificial Intelligence in Geosciences, 4: 47-58.
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, S. Patil, R. Juanes, 2023, Convection-diffusion with the colour gradient Lattice Boltzmann Method for three-component, two-phase flow, Transport in Porous Media, 1-22.
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, R. Juanes, 2021, Phase space study of viscous fingering and saturation pre and post breakthrough using Lattice Boltzmann simulations of two-phase flow, Arabian Journal of Geosciences, AJGS-D-21-01681R1, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08683-y
• S. Gautam, G. Morra, 2021, Pre-breakdown to stable phase and origin of multiple current pulses in argon DBD, Plasma Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1088/2058-6272/ac241f
• H.R. Tufo, D.A. Yuen, G. Morra, M.G. Knepley, Bei Zhang张贝 and Shi Chen陈石. 2021, Application of HPC and Big Data in Post-Pandemic Times, Earthquake Research Advances, 1, no. 3: 100006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eqrea.2021.100006
• G. Morra, E. Bozdag, M. Knepley, L. Räss, and V. Vesselinov, 2021, A tectonic shift in analytics and computing is coming, EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, 102, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EO159258.
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, R. Juanes, 2021, Influence of wetting on viscous fingering via 2D Lattice Boltzmann simulations, Transport in Porous Media, DOI 10.1007/s11242-021-01629-8
• S. Gautam, G. Morra, A Venkattraman, 2021, High frequency impedance characteristics of a tunable microplasma device, Journal of Applied Physics, 129, no. 15: 153301
• B. Brunsvik, G. Morra, G. Cambiotti, L. Chiaraluce, R. Di Stefano, P. De Gori, D. A. Yuen, 2021, Three-Dimensional Fault Morphology Obtained from Unsupervised Machine Learning of Clusters of Aftershocks, Tectonophysics, 804 228756, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2021.228756 , Jupyter Notebook: https://bit.ly/2MnCFdj
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, 2021, Optimized surface tension isotropy in the Rothman-Keller colour gradient Lattice Boltzmann Method for multi-phase flow, Physical Review E, 103, 033302
• P. Mora, G. Morra, D.A. Yuen, R. Juanes, 2021, Optimal wetting angles in Lattice Boltzmann simulations of viscous fingering, Transport in Porous Media, 136, no. 3: 831-842, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-020-01541-7

• 2020 – present Editor in Chief of “Artificial Intelligence in Geosciences” (CAS/Elsevier editors)
• 2015 – present Hensarling/Chapman Endowed Professorship in Geology (U. of Louisiana, USA)
• 2020 – 2022 & 2023 – present MS Physics graduate Coordinator (U. of Louisiana, USA)
• 2013, 2017, 2023 Organizer American Geophysical Union (AGU) Meeting sessions, USA
• 2018, 2019, 2021 & 2022: Main organizer AGU workshops on Data Science and Supercomputing
• 2017 Awarded Louisiana Board of Regents “Travel Grant for Emerging Faculty” (USA)
• 2013 National Habilitation for Associate Professor in Geophysics (Italy)
• 2013 Lecturing 20h graduate course at the Ecole Nationale Superieure, Nancy (France)
• 2012 Main organizer first international conference on Geodynamics in S. Korea (Jeju Island)
• 2011 8 hours graduate course on Accelerated Numerical Methods, University of Brescia (Italy)
• 2009 Awarded 2y Advanced Researcher Fellowship SNCF (Swiss National Science Foundation)