REU Site: SCEC Undergraduate Summer in Earthquake Information Technology (SCEC/UseIT)

University Of Southern California, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Institution: University of Southern California Proposal Number: 0354068 PI: Thomas H. Jordan Title: REU Site: SCEC Undergraduate Summer in Earthquake Information Technology \(SCEC/UseIT\) This project establishes a new REU site at the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), University of Southern California. The undergraduate research interns will use advanced IT tools to solve interdisciplinary earthquake research problems; bring together the usually separate fields of undergraduate study in computer science and engineering with the geosciences; and introduce non-geoscience majors to the practical problems of reducing earthquake risk. The SCEC already has in place an undergraduate research program under an Information Technology Research (ITR) award, and this project will be a natural outgrowth of that effort. The student research will be organized around the LA3D platform, an open-source, object-oriented visualization system written in Java, that can display earthquakes, faults, and volumetric geological structures in 3D. The NSF support will fund 12 interns/year for 3 years. The students will make field trips to fault systems in Southern California as well as to other advanced research facilities. They will receive training in making research presentations and in writing research publications.