Distinguished Lectureship - Speakers

John Vidale is a Professor at the University of Southern California and Director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). He completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University and earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology. Before returning to southern California in summer 2017, Vidale spent more than a decade as a Professor at the University of Washington, Director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, and the Washington State Seismologist. Prior to that, he worked at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the US Geological Survey, and taught for a decade at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). While at UCLA, Vidale was Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. His honors include the American Geophysical Union's Macelwane Medal (1994) and being named American Geophysical Union's Gutenberg lecturer in 2009. The College of the Environment at the University of Washington named Vidale the 2011 Researcher of the Year. Vidale’s research focuses on earthquakes, volcanoes, Earth structure, and the hazards of strong shaking. 

Sudden mayhem. Tremendous impact. Unpredictable disruption. Is it any wonder earthquakes reserve a dark corner in our nightmares?

The Pacific Northwest is vulnerable to several shades of shakes:

• giant coastal quakes,
• isolated, miles-deep pops, and
• rips that could tear Seattle’s downtown apart.

The University of Washington’s M9 Project, led for several years by John Vidale, is making the repercussions of each type of quake clearer—and both less and more frightening. Vidale will share the latest research and prognoses, and offer insights on implementing early warning technologies in the Pacific Northwest, so we can gain a few seconds or even minutes before suffering the strongest shaking.