Geology? Meteorology? Orology?
Earthquakes were prominently discussed in my Geology studies (minor). Both as a phenomenon and as an important source of data at large.
Orogy is a branch of Geology, no?
‘Earth Sciences’
A few places have more specialized glaciology or snow science programs and avalanche labs, eg Snow and Avalanche Lab - Snow and Avalanche Lab | Montana State University
My undergrad was in environmental science and I don’t recall having learned more than a sentence or two about avalanches, but that could very well be because of where I went to school (without snow).
I happened to be reading up on avalanches on wiki sometime in the last month. Which led me to update some vocabulary I’d been using wrong the last umpteen years.
Avalanches are when snow and ice slide down a slope. Landslides are when rock and dirt and mud & such slide down a slope. Lahars are landslides / mudslides / muddy floods caused by volcanic eruption farther upslope. Lava flows are lava itself pouring / oozing down a slope.
Is the OP asking about experts in landslides (=dirt) or in avalanches (=snow)? Probably two different specialties with some overlap.
Avalanches. I know landslides can and do happen where I live (Ozark Mountains), but I’m curious about avalanches. AI says no but … AI. I emailed a random Geology professor at Missouri State University in Springfield but I’m not sure Geology is the right department.
If they’re feeling nice, they can direct you to the right department (and probably the right specific person). If they’re grumpy or just too busy, you might not even get a reply.
Are there public science talks available in your town, through the universities or museums or otherwise? Those are a good way to get in touch with experts and sometimes even get their personal contacts for further conversations.
For what it’s worth, I learned way more about avalanches from the local avalanche watch (they give annual talks) than I ever did in school.
It seems like that school groups most of those topics under an umbrella of “School of Earth, Environment, and Sustainability”.
Maybe their director or one of the assistants can help locate the best faculty member: Faculty and Staff - School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability - Missouri State
Are you considering enrollment there? Often professors would be willing to meet to discuss things with a serious potential student. You have to work around their schedule and show up at their office, though.
Thanks for the clarification.
In my very limited understanding …
To have an avalanche you need rather a lot of snow and ice on a rather steep slope. A large enough accumulation that the pile on top is more cohesive and heavier than the somewhat slippery layer below can support.
My speculation is the Ozarks lack enough lasting snowfall, don’t get nearly heavy enough one-time snowfalls, and are too shallowly sloped to allow an avalanche-worthy accumulation of snow/ice to form.
Interestingly enough, the answer may be Civil Engineering!
I got the email address of Random Geology Professor from the same faculty directory you provided. My town library hosts talks about this and that but I don’t recall anything about this particular aspect of life in these hills. And no, I am very much not considering enrolling at MSU or any other school.
Given that you’re in Missouri asking about Missouri, I might check into the folks at the Geology department at Missouri University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Rolla.
The avalanche expert I met was a Civil Engineering Professor at the University of Calgary.
I was an avid backcountry skier for many years. I had read his book. A close friend and fellow skier was a researcher at UofC and had made an acquaintance of Bruce. So I had an opportunity to join them on a ski one fine spring day.
There are a bunch of things going on with snow avalanches and several different types and failures / triggers.
Slab avalanches result from densly packed wind deposited snow on lee slopes. The granules have a rounded shape so are less cohesive, yet the dense nature transmits a fracture very efficiently. Put this on an old layer that it doesn’t bond well to such as a sun crust and the whole thing cracks off with little impetus - such as a skier.
Powder avalanches are more like what you are talking about and tend to happen with large accumulations of fresh snow, but they can still start out from a slab.
Evaluating a slope is all about digging pits and test blocks to see what is going on with the layers in the snow pack Even more so from having a history of pits that season, knowing about all the recent weather events and hopefully having a perspective on how those layers are changing on different aspects of the topography. Some slopes are obvious deathtraps, but most are hard to be completely sure about. Most tragedies I researched were completely avoidable and were due to ignorance and bad choices. That said, I knew one extremely experienced skier that died.
I was buried once in a controlled scenario. It was fast, and I may as well have been in concrete. Nothing will focus your mind like not being able to breath.
My department is “Geography and Environmental Science.” We could handle this. It’s at the intersection of climate science (two of us are experts, one also more specifically in weather/meteorology) and geomorphology (one of us is an expert) with a dose of human-environment interactions.
One of us does mapping of dynamic mountain glaciers.
“Hazards” is a whole branch of geography.
With a little effort, I can give myself a panic attack just thinking about that scenario.
It’s not geology, or rather, it shouldn’t be.
Oh I panicked alright. The idea was to get a feel for it and try to ski out of it, which many skiers manage to do with slab avalanches. It was a small gully with nowhere to go and my friends were right there. Even so, I lost my balance and went down as the snow shifted beneath me. You are supposed to try to swim, cover your mouth, etc. There was none of that, I was immediately buried in cement with my mouth full of ice and only my hand sticking out. And my friends laughing at my frantic hand movements as they dug me out.
They were telling me they saw me to reassure me, grabbed my hand and were digging me out right away. Still panick.
Some time after that special snorkel like devices became available, which allow you to breath if you got buried. We all wore those. The joke was you would still be able to breath while you waited for your also buried friends to not rescue you.
Quis rescuiet ipsos rescures? 
Yeah. Ideally you are in a small group, with only one skier exposed at a time, and the others watching from somewhere safe. Sometimes there is no safe place and maybe you just should not be there that day.
We were sking in a different part of Roger’s Pass the day this tragedy happened. There was no way we would have set foot in Connaught valley that day for the very reason that there would be no safe place for spotters to be.
It was very sad, but there was major inexperience and poor judgement taking a large group in there that day. We heard the helicopters and knew it was bad news.