When will the next big one hit? Earthquake prediction is high in the public’s imagination and remains the central, unsolved problem for earthquake physicists. 

Join Emily Brodsky, professor and earthquake physicist at UC Santa Cruz, for an in depth discussion about when earthquakes might happen. Professor Brodsky will approach the conversation from four different perspectives. She will first discuss how scientists study earthquakes one at a time using a fundamental science approach and data collected from the world’s deepest water drilling. Second, she will share how scientists look at geological investigations of fault rocks to inform our understanding of the kind of earthquakes that will occur. Third, Brodsky will examine the statistics of earthquake occurrence and note the recent advances made by machine learning. Finally, Brodsky will look at earthquakes from a geographic context and how the ice streams of Antarctica provide insight into earthquake initiation.

Emily Brodsky is a professor and earthquake physicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on connecting empirical observations of earthquakes with fundamental physical processes. Brodsky earned her A.B. from Harvard in 1995 and Ph.D. from Caltech in 2001. She is an elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as the recipient of numerous awards including the 2005 Charles Richter Early Career award from the Seismological Society of America, the 2008 James Macelwane Medal from the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the 2019 Woolard Award from the Geological Society of America (GSA), the 2019 Gutenberg Lectureship, the 2021 Price Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, and the 2022 Nemmers Award in Earth Science. Brodsky is a Fellow of both AGU and GSA. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) and Incorporated Research Institutes for Seismology (IRIS) and is the chair of the Executive Committee of SZ4D. She has published over 140 peer-reviewed articles and presented over 150 invited lectures in 30 states and 13 countries. Her work has been featured in major press outlets such as the BBC, NPR, Time Magazine, New York Times, Nature, Reuters, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She has mentored more than 40 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, many of whom have gone on to become leaders in the field.

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Reception: 5:30 p.m.
Program begins at 6 p.m.