CPS Grad Spotlight - Hoi Leung (Jeremy) Pun
Name: Hoi Leung (Jeremy) Pun
MSc or PhD Candidate: PhD Candidate
Location of Undergraduate Education: H.B.Sc. University of Toronto
Name of the Lab at CPS: Lui Lab
Selected Awards: Mitacs Global Link Research Award - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Ontario Graduate Scholarship
Jeremy, please tell us about yourself and your journey as a PhD Candidate!
How did you come to UTM? What interested you to join a lab here?
During my undergraduate degree at UTM, I participated in the Research Opportunity Program (ROP) and worked on an undergraduate thesis with my current supervisor, Prof. Semechah Lui. Being immersed in a professional research environment, interacting with the research group, and participating in the entire research process have broadened my vision and revolutionized my ideas. I enjoyed my time as a student researcher in the lab and was interested in studying earthquakes, so I decided to return as a graduate student and continue studying the earthquake phenomenon.
When did you realize that you wanted to pursue graduate study?
The ROP experience and my undergraduate thesis project sparked my interest in pursuing graduate study. Both projects have given me firsthand experience with waveform arrival-time and source inversion analyses. Through reading literature and analyzing seismic data, I realized my passion in learning more about earthquakes and solving scientific problems in this field. Therefore, I decided to pursue a graduate study to learn and contribute to earthquake knowledge.
What are your research interests? Tell us few exciting things about your research.
I study the triggering mechanisms of earthquakes and earthquake source properties. Particularly, my major focus is on foreshocks, which are small magnitude earthquakes before a large magnitude earthquake (mainshock), and how their trigger mechanism can link to the rupture of the mainshock. Two end-member triggering mechanisms, aseismic slip and cascade triggering, have been proposed to explain the rupture of an earthquake. The cascade model suggests that foreshocks are triggered through earthquake-earthquake interaction via stress transfer, i.e., seismic slip from a mother event loads stress on surrounding areas, causing daughter events and eventually the mainshock. On the other hand, the aseismic slip model suggests foreshocks are byproducts of the aseismic slip nucleation process, i.e., aseismic slip (slip on the fault that does not generate seismic waves) nucleates the mainshock through loading stress, and during the progress, stress is loaded on the localized fault patch and triggers foreshocks. Foreshocks are byproducts of the process, and earthquakes are theoretically predictable if they are triggered by aseismic slip. Foreshocks are the only detectable seismic features before a large earthquake, and if they are triggered by aseismic slip, theoretically, we may predict the occurrence of the upcoming mainshock. The increase in understanding the nature of foreshocks potentially can help mitigate the seismic impact.
What is your goal when you finish your degree?
By the time I finish my degree, I hope I can publish my work in peer-reviewed journals. After graduation, I hope to continue conducting research in a research institution/university that can contribute to the scientific community.
What are some of your achievements you'd like to share?
Last summer, I was granted the Mitacs Global Link Research Award – Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and had the opportunity to be supervised under a leading expert in the field, Professor Aitaro Kato from the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, for 3 months. I had the best summer when I went to Japan.
Do you have any advice for students considering to pursue graduate studies in research?
In my opinion, the most important step, and also the first step, is to find a topic/research question that interests you. You are going to spend 4-5 years (or even more time) on this topic. During the process, there will be a lot of barriers and frustrations, and you will need the passion to motivate yourself. Also, choosing a PhD program won’t guarantee anything. You will still enter a competitive environment when you are looking for a post-doc or academic position after graduation.
Lastly, it’s also crucial to learn not to compare with others, though it is difficult. During graduate studies, you might encounter people who are better than you, working on more complicated research than you, or who publish more papers. You can feel frustrated, but it is important to be confident in yourself, learn from others, and focus on your work.
