Southern California Earthquake Center

Southern California
Earthquake Center

Formation	1991
Headquarters	Los Angeles, California
Membership	16 Core Institutions and 47 Participating Institutions
Director and Board Chair	Thomas H. Jordan
Deputy Director	Gregory C. Beroza
Vice Chair of Board	Nadia Lapusta
Website	www.scec.org

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) is a consortium of fifteen research institutions with a mission to gather new information about earthquakes in Southern California, integrate such information into a comprehensive and predictive understanding of earthquake phenomena, and communicate this understanding to end-users in the earthquake engineering profession and the general public in order to increase earthquake awareness, reduce economic losses, and save lives. Its headquarters are at the University of Southern California.

A community of over 600 scientists from 16 Core Institutions, 47 Participating Institutions, and elsewhere participate in SCEC. SCEC also partners with a large number of other research and education/outreach organizations in many disciplines. Funding for SCEC activities is provided by the National Science Foundation and the United States Geological Survey. The current director of SCEC is Thomas H. Jordan.

To support this community, SCEC engages in information technology research that will revolutionize our methods of doing collaborative research and distributing research products on-line. In addition, the SCEC Communication, Education, and Outreach Program offers student research experiences, web-based education tools, classroom curricula, museum displays, public information brochures, online newsletters, and technical workshops and publications.

Outreach programs

SCEC currently operates two different internship programs funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the United States Department of Defense as well as several other institutions including the University of Southern California and the United States Geological Survey. These two programs are the UseIT program which is directed towards developing software for understanding earthquakes worldwide and the SURE program which is aimed at more focused topics of research in the Earth Sciences. The director of these two programs is Dr. Robert de Groot.^[1]

UseIT

The SCEC UseIT (Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology) program, unites undergraduates who are sophomores, juniors, or seniors in the coming fall, taking potentially any major, and coming from colleges and universities across the continent to participate in a leading-edge program at SCEC headquarters.

SCEC/UseIT interns work on multi-disciplinary, collaborative teams to tackle a scientific “Grand Challenge” posed by SCEC director Dr. Thomas H. Jordan. The Grand Challenge varies each year but always entails performing computer science research that is needed by earthquake scientists or outreach professionals.^[2]

SURE

The SCEC SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) program pairs a student, one-on-one, to conduct research with a pre-eminent earthquake scientist or specialist. Many SURE interns also have the opportunity to work alongside graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, and thus gain the special perspective of these early career professionals.

Started in 1994, SCEC/SURE has supported students to work in a very wide variety of fields related to earthquake science, including paleoseismic field investigations, remote sensing, risk mitigation, seismic velocity modeling, effects of earthquakes on natural resources such as groundwater, science education, information technology, and earthquake engineering.^[3]

UCERF

SCEC is one of three institutions (the other being the California Geological Survey and USGS) that form the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities (WGCEP), responsible for creating the California earthquake "forecast," UCERF. The current version of the forecast is known as UCERF2, with the latest forecast results, known as UCERF3, to be finalized within the coming months^[4]

Headquarters

SCEC Headquarters are located at the University of Southern California's Park campus just south of Downtown Los Angeles. Administrative offices for SCEC are located on the first floor of the Zumberge Hall of Science (ZHS) on Trousdale Parkway. Other facilities in Zumberge Hall include an educational development office, software development lab, undergraduate computer lab and the office of director Thomas H. Jordan as well as several media rooms for presentations and public outreach.

Core institutions

SCEC Headquarters in Zumberge Hall

SCEC is a consortium of fifteen core institutions:

References

Sources

Aki, K. (2002), "Synthesis of Earthquake Science Information and Its Public Transfer: A History of the Southern California Earthquake Center", International Handbook of Earthquake & Engineering Seismology (PDF), Part A, Volume 81A (First ed.), Academic Press, pp. 39–49, ISBN 978-0124406520

External links

http://www.scec.org/ Official SCEC site
http://www.data.scec.org/recent/index.html Recent Earthquakes in California and Nevada

University of Southern California

Schools and divisions	Accounting Architecture Business Cinematic Arts Communication & Journalism Dentistry Education Engineering Gerontology International Relations Law Medicine Music Physical Therapy Public Policy Dramatic Arts

Research	Alfred Mann Institute Andrus Gerontology Center Annenberg Center for Communication Brain and Creativity Institute Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems Center for Visual Anthropology Center on Public Diplomacy Information Sciences Institute Institute for Creative Technologies Integrated Media Systems Center Jane Goodall Research Center Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute Norman Lear Center ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives Southern California Earthquake Center Southern California Marine Institute Tomás Rivera Policy Institute Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute

Athletics	USC Trojans Baseball Men's basketball Football Men's volleyball Women's volleyball Dedeaux Field Galen Center Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Uytengsu Aquatics Center "Fight On" Spirit of Troy Rivalries with Notre Dame (Jeweled Shillelagh) and UCLA (Victory Bell) Lexus Gauntlet

Media	Annenberg TV News Daily Trojan KUSC KXSC Neon Tommy Trojan Vision

Miscellaneous	Campus Libraries Trojan Shrine Traditions Faculty Trojan Family Trojan Knights USC Fisher Museum of Art USC Helenes USC Pacific Asia Museum USC Shoah Foundation Gamble House Pacific Philosophical Quarterly

Category Commons

Coordinates: 34°1′13″N 118°17′8″W / 34.02028°N 118.28556°W / 34.02028; -118.28556

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, April 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.