|
|
|
|
The SCEC Annual Meeting is right around the corner, and I can’t wait to see so many of you in Palm Springs later this month. If you have not registered yet, please do so! There is still time, and we do not want to miss you, or your input on SCEC’s future, in Palm Springs.
|
This is a special SCEC meeting as we embark on several new initiatives, reflect on SCEC’s great legacy, reimagine SCEC’s future, preserve the strength of our community, and rejuvenate SCEC’s network of partners.
|
Through all of this, we are staying true to our core values. SCEC will continue to be the place where we push the frontiers of earthquake system science, but we are also the place where that science translates into products that benefit society by enabling science-based earthquake preparedness and innovations in engineering and social science that improve seismic and community resilience. SCEC sits naturally in Pasteur’s quadrant as a steward of user-inspired basic research, and this year’s Annual Meeting will strongly reflect that role by embracing the full arc from science to society.
|
The Program Committee, consisting of Alice Gabriel (Chair), Jillian Maloney, Morgan Page, Morgan Moschetti, Gareth Funning, Ashley Griffith, Zach Ross, and Christie Rowe, with input from Tran Huynh and Greg Beroza, has put together a splendid SCEC2026 plenary program that brings together leaders and early career researchers across earth science, social science, and engineering, and from academia, industry, and state and federal government.
|
SCEC2026 is designed to be more than a presentation of what we know. It is a conversation about how we connect observations to models, models to hazard, hazard to action, and individual research efforts to a shared scientific enterprise. It is about where our science is headed and the community we need to build that future together.
|
We begin with a challenge that gives our work urgency: How do we prepare California for the next great earthquake? Lucy Jones, Kate Scharer, and Sara McBride will help open that conversation through ShakeOut Scenario 2.0, a physics-to-impact digital experiment of a modern Mw 7.8 southern San Andreas earthquake and its cascading consequences for Southern California; a community-wide initiative that is led by SCEC, Dr. Lucy Jones, the USGS, and a broad alliance of partners including the Seismic Safety Commission and the California Geological Survey, among others.
|
From there, we turn to the earthquake system itself and the deciphering of the earthquake cycle. This is our key for forecasting earthquakes and ground motions.
|
First, we observe. Alba Rodriguez Padilla and Molly Zebker will take us from fault mechanics across the earthquake cycle to new opportunities for earthquake imaging through NISAR. With SCEC’s expanded statewide scope, the opportunity is not simply to collect more observations, but to connect them into a coherent picture of the entire earthquake system.
|
Then, we model. Taeho Kim and Ned Field will explore new frontiers in physics-based modeling, from fault processes and permeability to the need for multicycle earthquake simulators. Their perspectives will help frame how observations become the foundation for a new generation of simulations spanning earthquake cycles, complex fault systems, dynamic rupture, and time-dependent hazard. These models challenge us to connect processes across scales and to continually test what we simulate against what the Earth actually does. This is critical for SCEC’s vision of Digital Twins.
|
But understanding the system is only part of the story.
|
The next question is: How do we turn earthquake physics into information people can use?
|
Scott Callaghan, Edric Pauk, and Xiaofeng Meng from SCEC HQ, will showcase SCEC’s physics-based seismic hazard, ground motion, and earthquake forecasting capabilities. SCEC’s computational platforms, including CyberShake, the Broadband Platform, and emerging ground-motion and rupture forecasting capabilities, create a bridge between fundamental science and seismic hazard.
|
We will then examine not only what these tools can do today, but what they need to become as SCEC grows into a statewide earthquake science enterprise.
|
And that brings us to the people on the other side of that bridge.
|
Who uses earthquake science, and what do they need next? Albert Kottke of PG&E, Shawna Ackerman of the California Earthquake Authority (CEA), and C.B. Crouse of AECOM will bring perspectives from utilities, insurance, and engineering practice to a conversation moderated by Tran Huynh and Jillian Maloney. They will help us examine where SCEC science is already making a difference and where we can make it more useful, accessible, and actionable.
|
That conversation leads naturally to perhaps the most important transition of the meeting: from knowledge to action.
|
Lori Peek and Laurie Johnson will bring perspectives on resilience, public policy, and the connections among governments, utilities, insurers, and communities. This session will ask how better science can contribute to safer infrastructure, stronger communities, better policy, improved emergency planning, and more effective risk communication. It will also challenge us to consider how we ensure that the questions we pursue are informed not only by scientific opportunity, but also by the decisions people need to make.
|
By Wednesday, we will turn our attention toward the future.
|
Alice Gabriel and Greg Beroza will moderate a conversation about the grand challenges in earthquake system science, joined by Mostafa Mousavi, Camilla Cattania, and Devin McPhillips, who bring perspectives spanning AI and machine learning, earthquake modeling, and earthquake geology. We will ask what it will take to make progress on the problems that remain stubbornly difficult, what new opportunities are being created by new observing systems and computational capabilities, and which questions SCEC may be uniquely positioned to tackle over the coming decade.
|
And we will close with a question that belongs to everyone: What should SCEC build together?
|
Throughout the program the newly launched SCEC’s Technical Activity Groups (TAGs) will provide another important thread connecting these conversations to the work ahead. The TAGs highlight areas where focused community efforts are already advancing shared priorities. Together, they represent an important mechanism for turning the ideas and challenges into collaborative research, stronger community products, new partnerships, and tangible outcomes for SCEC’s statewide earthquake science mission.
|
Across plenary discussions, TAG conversations, poster sessions, lightning talks, informal gatherings, the SCEC Wish Wall, and conversations spanning career stages and institutions, we hope you will help answer the question of what SCEC should build next.
|
We look forward to bringing the community together August 30 through September 2 to explore that story and to write its next chapter together.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Professor of Earth Science and Civil Engineering
|
|
Director, Statewide California Earthquake Center (SCEC)
|
|
University of Southern California
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
