Prof. Dr. Corrado Cimarelli
Corrado Cimarelli is the leader of the volcanic lightning team (the VoLT) at the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at LMU in Munich and PI of the ERC project “VOLTA”. He got his PhD in 2006 from the Università degli Studi Roma Tre (Italy), studying the evolution of the Panarea volcanic complex, in the Eolian Islands. He has been a Royal Society-Accademia dei Lincei Research Associate at the School of Earth Sciences of the University of Bristol (UK). He joined the LMU in 2009, first as a Marie Curie Fellow, and since 2013, as assistant professor. Beside studying volcanic electrification processes, his research revolves around explosive volcanism and tephra studies, volcano stratigraphy, magma rheology and volcanic conduit dynamics. Find him in the lab or on active volcanoes.
Dr. Ulrich Küppers
Ulli Küppers is a researcher in volcanology at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Faculty staff at LMU Munich. He is (co-)responsible for the rock preparation, petrophysics and magma fragmentation laboratories. His research interests are: explosive volcanism; generation and impact of volcanic ash; quantitative observation of explosive eruptions; scaled laboratory experiments, submarine volcanism, transport and sedimentation of pyroclastic density currents.
Dr. Markus Schmid
Markus Schmid is a Postdoc at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. His research focuses on the relationship between vent geometry and eruption dynamics in order to establish a link between observable eruption parameters to the driving forces in the shallow plumbing system. To investigate this, he uses a combination of UAV photogrammetry, field observations and laboratory experiments. He is also involved in the development of multi parametric sensors that can be deployed by UAVs close to active volcanic vents. To characterise volcanic explosions in the field he uses high-speed and thermal cameras, aerial footage as well as pressure and acoustic signals.
Dr. Caron Vossen
Caron Vossen, born in the Netherlands, received her PhD degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 2022. In her work she explored the conditions for the occurrence of volcanic lightning by carrying out field measurements at active volcanoes using a thunderstorm detector. In order to understand the electrical activity generated by a variety of volcanic eruption styles and magnitudes, she has been studying the electrical signals generated by explosions on Sakurajima (Japan), Stromboli and Etna (Italy) and during the 2021 Cumbre Vieja eruption on La Palma (Spain) using a volcanic lightning detection algorithm developed in Python. She is now back in the Netherlands as Senior Inspector of Observational Seismology at the State Supervision of Mines. She keeps collaborating with the VoLT as honorary member of the team.
Isabella Haarer, MSc.
Isabella Haarer, is a PhD student at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany. Back in 2009 she climbed up her first volcano (Gunung Agung) on Bali, Indonesia where her fascination with volcanoes awoke in her.
Her interests lie in: Physical and experimental volcanology and seismology.
Carina Poetsch, MSc.
Carina Poetsch joined the team in 2023 as a PhD candidate at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Her work focuses on the factors that influence volcanic lightning generation, with particular emphasis on the lower limit of lightning generation and detection. This includes the development of an upgraded system for our thunderstorm detectors, which has already enabled a permanent installation on Stromboli volcano (Italy). The new detectors continuously record the electrical activity and now feature mobile data transfer and remote communication capabilities. By expanding this network of detectors and conducting on-site measurements at active volcanoes, she aims to constrain the explosion size that can be detected by our monitoring systems during volcanic eruptions.
ALUMNI
Dr. Damien Gaudin
Damien Gaudin is an experienced volcanologist expert in remote sensing of active volcanoes. He graduated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and moved to Brest (France) in 2008 where he obtained his PhD on thermal infrared remote sensing. In 2012, he joined the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Rome, Italy, as Early Career Researcher in the frame of the “NEMOH” Marie Curie ITN project, to study the dynamic of Strombolian explosions through thermal infrared and high speed imaging. He joined the LMU labs in 2016 as Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow with the project “VOLTAIC”, investigating electrical discharges in volcanic jet analogues. Recipient of the 2019 George Walker Medal of the IAVCEI, he is now visiting scientist at LMU and honorary member of the VoLT.
Dr. Valeria Cigala
Integrated shock-tube experiments, high speed imaging and textural characterization of pyroclasts.
Woife Stoiber, BSc.
Woife, from Germany, is the photographer of the Voltaic Team at the Geology Department of LMU. He’s currently finishing his MSc in Geosciences at the University of Innsbruck (Austria).
He got his eduaction and training as a media designer and professional photographer in 2003. Since then he traveled all over the world to catch the most beautiful moments on earth. Back in 2014, he shot his very first active Volcano. The Stromboli in Italy! Volcanoes have fascinated him ever since and gave him the reason to start studying Geosciences.
He got his eduaction and training as a media designer and professional photographer in 2003. Since then he traveled all over the world to catch the most beautiful moments on earth. Back in 2014, he shot his very first active Volcano. The Stromboli in Italy! Volcanoes have fascinated him ever since and gave him the reason to start studying Geosciences.