Dr. Pasan Herath is an early-career seismologist and the Lead Earthquake Analyst at Earth Sciences New Zealand. His research focuses on imaging Earth structure and understanding seismotectonic, hydrogeologic and environmental processes using seismological techniques. He also specialises in operational earthquake monitoring and develops novel techniques and pipelines for earthquake characterisation including AI-driven models.

Pasan’s contributions have advanced the understanding of Earth’s crust-mantle interactions, subduction zone structure, and temporal changes in seismic properties in subduction zones. He has been the lead author of high impact research publications in top-tier journals such as Science Advances, Nature Communications Earth and Environment, Earth and Planetary Science Letters and Nature Scientific Reports. Pasan has also been actively contributing to the improve the understanding of the seismotectonic setting of Sri Lanka. He is also the recipient of a Marsden Fast Start Grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand to investigate the driving mechanism of unrest and eruptions in New Zealand volcanoes using novel seismological techniques.

Pasan holds a Ph.D. in Geophysics from Victoria University of Wellington (2021) and a B.Sc. (Hons) in Geology from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He previously served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Ottawa and an Adjunct Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington.