Utpal Kumar

Utpal Kumar, PhD

Computational and Data Science Research Specialist at UC Berkeley building scalable seismic and structural monitoring systems, from real-time data pipelines to HPC inversion workflows.

Utpal Kumar, PhD

Computational Seismologist | Structural Health Monitoring | Scientific Software and HPC

I am a Computational and Data Science Research Specialist at the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley. I build scalable computational workflows that connect geophysics with modern software architecture, with an emphasis on seismic, geodetic, and distributed sensing applications.

My current work focuses on smartphone-based ambient vibration analysis for structural health monitoring, real-time processing pipelines, and large-scale scientific computing for seismic imaging.

Current Research

  • MyShake statewide structural health monitoring in California: extracting and tracking building dynamic properties from ambient smartphone accelerometer recordings.
  • Automated building seismic monitoring and event processing in Taiwan: continuous acquisition, deep-learning phase picking, and large-scale event analysis.
  • Yellowstone mid-mantle seismic imaging using full-waveform inversion and broadband synthetic waveform modeling.
  • Scalable real-time geophysical data systems for seismic and citizen-science data streams.

Experience

  • Computational and Data Science Research Specialist, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley (2026-Present)
  • Assistant Project Scientist, Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley (2025-2026)
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley (2021-2025), with Prof. Richard M. Allen
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley (2021-2023), with Prof. Barbara Romanowicz
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taiwan (2020-2021), with Prof. Bor-Shouh Huang

Education

  • Ph.D., Computational Geophysics (2014-2020), National Central University and Academia Sinica (TIGP Fellowship)
  • Integrated B.S.-M.S., Earth Sciences (2009-2014), IISER Kolkata, India (INSPIRE Fellowship)

Computing and Technical Skills

HPC and Cloud Computing
MPI, OpenMP, SLURM; Berkeley SAVIO, NERSC (Cori/Perlmutter), Anvil, TACC; Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP
Scientific Programming
Python (NumPy, SciPy, Pandas), C/C++, Fortran, MATLAB; CMake, Make; optimization of scientific workflows
Geophysical Data Systems
miniSEED, StationXML, SAC; HDF5/Zarr, netCDF; ObsPy, SPECFEM, GMT/PyGMT
Databases and Storage
PostgreSQL, MongoDB, InfluxDB (time series), Redis, SQLite; management of large geophysical archives
Real-Time Architectures
Kafka, RabbitMQ, WebSockets; gRPC and FastAPI services; low-latency alerting and processing pipelines
DevOps and Reproducibility
Git, GitHub Actions, pytest (unit/integration/end-to-end), semantic versioning, Sphinx/ReadTheDocs
Machine Learning
PyTorch, TensorFlow; ML-based feature extraction, signal processing, and inference pipelines for geophysical data
Technical Skills & Proficiency

I present my core technical stack below with a practical proficiency view based on my current project work.

  • 95% 95%
  • 90% 90%
  • 90% 90%
  • 88% 88%
  • 86% 86%
  • 85% 85%
  • 84% 84%
  • 82% 82%
  • 80% 80%
  • 80% 80%
  • 78% 78%
  • 72% 72%

Publications

Preprints

  1. Song, J., Zhu, W., Wang, H., Kumar, U., Taira, T., and Allen, R. M. (2026). VORA: Rapid Association of Earthquake Phases from Local to Global. arXiv, 2607.10450. Preprint, submitted July 11, 2026. arXiv:2607.10450 · DOI

Selected Peer-Reviewed

  1. Kumar, U., Loh, C.-H., Liang, W.-T., and Ma, K.-F. (2026). Long-Term Earthquake Response in a Midrise Reinforced Concrete Building: Insights From Hybrid Seismic Monitoring. Earthquake Spectra, 42(4), e70125. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp4.70125
  2. Kumar, U., Marcou, S., and Allen, R. M. (2025). Ambient vibration analysis of high-rise buildings using MyShake smartphone data. Journal of Building Engineering, 106, 112496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2025.112496
  3. Patel, S. C., Gunay, S., Marcou, S., Gou, Y., Kumar, U., and Allen, R. M. (2023). Toward structural health monitoring with the MyShake smartphone network. Sensors, 23(21), 8668. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23218668
  4. Kumar, U., Legendre, C. P., Zhao, L., and Chao, B. F. (2022). Dynamic Time Warping as an alternative to windowed cross correlation in seismological applications. Seismological Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1785/0220210288
  5. Kumar, U., Legendre, C. P., Lee, J.-C., Zhao, L., and Chao, B. F. (2022). On analyzing GNSS displacement field variability of Taiwan: Hierarchical agglomerative clustering based on Dynamic Time Warping technique. Computers and Geosciences, 169, 105243. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2022.105243
  6. Kumar, U., and Legendre, C. P. (2022). Crust-mantle decoupling beneath Afar revealed by Rayleigh-wave tomography. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 17036. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20890-5
  7. Kumar, U., Legendre, C. P., and Huang, B. S. (2021). Crustal structure and upper mantle anisotropy of the Afar triple junction. Earth, Planets and Space, 73(1), 166. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-021-01495-0
  8. Kumar, U., Chao, B. F., and Chang, E. T.-Y. (2020). What causes the common-mode error in array GPS displacement fields: Case study for Taiwan in relation to atmospheric mass loading. Earth and Space Science. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EA001159

Research Software

  1. Kumar, U., and Legendre, C. P. (2021). STADIUM-Py: Python command-line interface for automated receiver functions and shear-wave splitting measurements. Version 1.0 [Software]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4686103

Recent Conference Activity