Rate My Professor Steve Gao

Stephen S. Gao is the Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of geosciences and Chair of the Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Department at Missouri University of Science and Technology, a position he assumed permanently on April 1, 2024, following his interim role since August 2023. He has been a faculty member at Missouri S&T since 2006, also serving as Professor of Geophysics in the Earth Sciences and Engineering department, Chair of the Geology and Geophysics Program, and director of the High Performance Computing Research Center. Previously, Gao held positions as Associate Professor from 2004 to 2006 and Assistant Professor from 1999 to 2004 at Kansas State University, visiting assistant professor at Arizona State University, and postdoctoral research associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. His academic background includes a Ph.D. and M.S. in Geophysics and Space Physics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and 1993, respectively, and a B.S. in Marine Geology and Geophysics from Ocean University of China in 1984.

Gao specializes in geophysics, with research focusing on earthquake seismology, seismological investigations of the Earth’s crust and mantle using seismic tomography, anisotropy, and receiver function analyses, crustal deformation, earthquake hazard prediction and mitigation, and exploration geophysics. His projects employ computationally intensive imaging techniques incorporating artificial intelligence to explore the Earth’s subsurface for resource discovery and insights into tectonic evolution, spanning depths from tens of meters to thousands of kilometers. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals including Nature and Science, many featuring his graduate students as lead authors, and presented at over 250 conferences. Gao has led or co-led approximately 40 funded research projects from the National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society, and petroleum industry, supporting investigations in Africa, Asia, Central America, and North America. He has mentored 19 Ph.D. students to graduation as primary advisor and 14 as co-advisor. His honors include multiple Missouri S&T awards for faculty excellence in teaching, research, and service, the 2018 Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, and election as a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2012. Gao is a member of the American Geophysical Union, Seismological Society of America, Geological Society of America, and Society of Exploration Geophysicists.