The primary focus of my research is to understand the structure of seismic heterogeneities in the Earth's interior. In particular, I develop finite-frequency theory for seismic wave propagation in laterally heterogeneous media and apply the theory to image high resolution seismic structure in wavespeed, anisotropy and anelasticity (Q) in the Earth's mantle by diffractional tomography.

• Youyi Ruan and Ying Zhou (2010) “The effects of 3-D anelasticity (Q) structure on surface-wave phase delays”, Geophysical Journal International, in press.
• Ying Zhou (2009a) “Multi-mode 3-D surface-wave sensitivity kernels in radially anisotropic media”, Geophysical Journal International, 176, 865-888.
• Ying Zhou (2009b) “Surface-wave sensitivity to 3-D anelasticity (Q)”, Geophysical Journal International, 178, 1403-1410.
• F. A. Dahlen and Ying Zhou (2006) “Surface-wave group-delay and attenuation kernels”, Geophysical Journal International, 165, 545-554.
• Ying Zhou, Guust Nolet, F. A. Dahlen and Gabi Laske (2006) “Global upper-mantle structure from finite-frequency surface-wave tomography”, Journal of Geophysical Research, 111, B04304,doi: 10.1029/2005JB003677.
• Ying Zhou, F. A. Dahlen, Guust Nolet and Gabi Laske (2005) “Finite-frequency effects in global surface-wave tomography”, Geophysical Journal International, 163, 1087-1111.
• Ying Zhou, F. A. Dahlen and Guust Nolet (2004) “3-D sensitivity kernels for surface-wave observables”, Geophysical Journal International, 158, 142-168.
• Ying Zhou, Guust Nolet and F. A. Dahlen (2003) “Surface sediment effects on teleseismic P wave amplitude”, Journal of Geophysical Research, 108, No. B8, 2471, 2002JB002331.