Geology Alumni
Kevan Kamabiyashi works for the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. He is on the Deformation Monitoring team. When he was 11, Kevan enrolled in Na Pua Noeau, where he studied volcanoes with Jim Anderson of UHH and Jim Kauahikaua of HVO. While at UH-Hilo, Kevan also gained summer experience with HVO, thanks to the Minority Participation in Earth Sciences (MPES) program.
Heather Jeppeson works for the U.S. Geological Survey’s Water Resources Division in Honolulu as a Hydrologic Technician. "Eighty percent of my job is working on the computer doing data base and water quality studies. The other 20% is spent in the field maintaining steam gauges and measuring discharges." Heather and Steve Sahetapy-Engel are the proud parents (3/20/2005) of Miles James Olly Sahetapy-Engel. 
Steve Sahetapy-Engel is working at the University of Hawaii at Manoa on research projects. Recently, he analyzed the pyroclastic fall deposit produced by the Kaharoa eruption of Tarawera Volcano in about 1350AD, a very complex deposit with several lobes. Steve’s job was to trace the fall units between the lobes and determine if they were formed at the same time under conditions of wind shear, or if they followed one after the other and were erupted into different wind fields. Steve also did compouter modelling of the fallout processes to determine volumes of this widespread rhyolitic pumice fall deposit.
David Barnes is working in the Interpretation Division of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Because he has extensive geological knowledge of the area, and is friendly and outgoing, he is the ideal employee for this job. Providing information to Park visitors includes manning the Visitor Center desk as well as taking school groups on hikes to volcanic features.
Dave King is working with Oregon D.O.T. and enjoying it. "It brings me back to the days of volcano monitoring with CSAV. I’m also actively pursuing a Masters in Electrical Engineering at Portland State U. Night classes right now." Dave was recently promoted to become the Junior Photogrammetrist.
Gail Ostrander is living in Santa Barbara, California and working for Padre Associates Inc. in Ventura. She writes: "Things are going really good. Padre is a great company and I really like it here. We have a lot of cool projects right now from slope stability to geotech reports for big construction projects. I got to go down hole to record the subsurface geology for a water tank site. The hole was 2 feet in diameter and 50 feet deep, the hole was bored using a bucket auger. Talk about being in geology! I still want to go to grad school."
Dave Phillips has completed a Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research involved installation of GPS stations in the South Pacific and Antarctica. Dr. Phillips is now employed at UNAVCO, and married to UHH geology major Francine Coloma, who spent many years working at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Dave and Fran returned to Hawaii in spring of 2005 to assist with the installation of GPS units on Mauna Loa.
Les Wallace enjoyed working with the Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project as a core logger. Core down to approximately 10,900 feet has been retrieved and stored for analysis.
Don Shamp works for the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, as a support geologist. He has been to Mt. St. Helens with Ed Wolff and Yellowstone with Maurice Sako, and has done work on Colorado maps with Pete Lipman.