Hi, I'm Kai Hu, a PhD candidate at the Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin-Madison. I have a strong quantitative interest in understanding how the environment we and other organisms inhabit is shaped by the physical, chemical and biological processes over human and geological timescales. I grew up in the humid subtropics of southern China and spent my college years on the semiarid Loess Plateau which borders the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. The class/research field trips during my undergraduate and master's program brought me to the periphery and interior of Tibet, the youngest and highest and most geologically active plateau in the world. Those trips first ignited my curiosity to read the landscapes and tell their stories. Following this curiosity, I joined Ferrier's Surface Process and Sea Level research group in 2017 and have since been focusing on unraveling the rate of divide migration in the Qilian Shan in northeast Tibet and quantifying the influence of climate on soil chemical erosion in southern California. My research combines laboratory measurements, field instrumentation and numerical models.

When I am off work, I like photography, playing basketball (a proud fan of Milwaukee Bucks!), swimming, attending aviation shows and getting awed by the beautiful aerodynamics of airplanes. I also like traveling and am a big fan of the US national parks. When I am not on the road, I enjoy reading the "Roadside Geology" series.