The Kathmandu Geo Lab is a student-to-student collaboration between undergraduates of the Institute of Engineering (Pulchowk Campus) of Tribhuvan University and undergraduates of Duke University. The aim of the KTM Geo Lab is to build in-country capacity to develop and advance geo hazard mitigation measures via mentored research projects. Mentored collaboration proceeds via weekly meetings in which student teams identify their research questions, set goals, schedule milestones, review current literature in their field, refine the scope of their study, generate original findings, and present their work at an annual research poster symposium held in Kathmandu.

Research projects in the KTM Geo Lab are inherently collaborative and cross-disciplinary. Student teams have undertaken research in hazard mapping; seismic wave attenuation models; the social science dimensions of designing early warning systems; web interfaces to cloud-based data repositories; ground motion feature extraction; Gaussian process models of seismic ground motion features; and sensor modeling, calibration and inversion. Please browse the research posters presented in the research section of this site.

The KTM Geo Lab began in 2019 (2076) via a MOU between the Institute of Engineering of Tribhuvan University and the Pratt School of Engineering of Duke University. The first poster symposium was held at the Kathmandu Innovation Hub in early 2020 (2077). Collaboration proceeded via weekly teleconferences through the pandemic between quarantining student groups. The symposia resumed in the 2023 (2080) and continued in 2024 (2081).

We gratefully acknowledge support from the Bass Connections program of Duke University.