5 December 2017/WJ

Member Institution Data

Logo or Photo of Institute in jpg format

Contact Person Name and Position:

Mr. Mark Benthien

E-mail:benthien@usc.edu

Name of Institute:

Southern California Earthquake Center(SCEC)

Address:

University of Southern California
3651 Trousdale Pkwy #169, Los Angeles,
CA 90089

Institute e-mail:scec@usc.edu

Institute webpage URL:

www.SCEC.org

OutlineWe study why and how earthquakes occur, evaluate their effects, and help societies prepare
to survive and recover.
The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) was founded as a Science & Technology
Center on February 1, 1991, with joint funding by the National Science Foundation(NSF) and the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS). SCEC graduated from the STC Program in2002 and has since been funded as a stand-alone center under cooperative agreements withboth agencies, and additional support from other agencies, private foundations, and publicutilities.
The SCEC community comprises one of the largest research collaborations in geoscience,with more than 1000 active participants on SCEC projects, more than half which participate
in SCEC’s Annual Collaboration Meeting. SCEC is organized as a consortium of “coreinstitutions”, which commit sustained support, and a much larger set of “participatinginstitutions”, which join through requests initiated by scientists who wish to participate in5 December 2017/WJSCEC.
SCEC’s core research program is investigator-driven and open to anyone who is willing tosubmit a qualified project plan for peer review. The core resources are allocated through anannual planning process that involves input from the entire SCEC community, as well as
counsel from an external Advisory Council and the sponsoring agencies. About two-thirds ofthe SCEC science budget goes to students and early-career scientists engaged ininvestigator-initiated research. The roster changes constantly as new people andinstitutions become involved. The Center’s working groups, workshops, field activities, andannual meeting enable scientists to work together over sustained periods, building “deepcollaborations” and strong interpersonal networks that promote intellectual exchange andamplify the support for students and early-career scientists. SCEC encourages colleagues
with creative ideas about earthquakes to formulate them as hypotheses that can be tested
collectively. Researchers with new hypotheses are quickly brought together with experts
who have observational insights, modeling skills, and knowledge of statistical testing
methods.

A Reliable and Trusted Partner
SCEC is a reliable and trusted partner that works with other organizations to reduce
earthquake risk and promote societal resilience to earthquake disasters. SCEC engages
earthquake engineers through joint projects with the Pacific Earthquake Engineering
Research (PEER) Center, the California Earthquake Authority, and the Pacific Gas &Electric Company, and also directly through its active Earthquake Engineering
Implementation Interface (EEII).
The SCEC Communication Education and Outreach (CEO) program manages thestatewide Earthquake Country Alliance (ECA), which now comprises more than 200 partnerorganizations and coordinates the Great California ShakeOut, involving more than
10 million Californians each year in practicing and improving their earthquake safety.
Through CEO efforts sustained by the SCEC core program and funded
additionally by FEMA and other agencies, ShakeOut has expanded beyond California to
all U.S. states and territories as well as to Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and a growing
number of other countries.
The CEO program leverages SCEC research in developing mechanisms to promote
community preparedness and resilience, including publications such as Putting Down Rootsin Earthquake Country, installation of “Quake Catcher Network” sensors in schools andmuseums, and the development of curricular materials. Partners in its K-14 Education
Initiative include IRIS, UNAVCO, EarthScope, USGS, and CGS. One of SCEC’s broadest
and deepest impacts is the highly successful Summer Undergraduate Research Experience(SURE) and Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (USEIT) internprograms, which have graduated since 1994 more than 600 undergraduates, including many

5 December 2017/WJ

women and underrepresented minority students.

An International Leader
SCEC is an international center that inspires interdisciplinary collaborations, and it
involves many scientists from other countries. Many leading foreign universities andresearch organizations are enrolled as participating institutions, and others are involved
through the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability(CSEP) and Collaboratory for Interseismic Simulation Modeling (CISM), bilateralmemoranda of understanding, and multinational collaborations, such as the Global
Earthquake Model (GEM) program. The SCEC program is heavily leveraged bycontributions by the foreign participants who are supported through their own institutions.

A brief description of Research Interests, Achievements and Challenges:
SCEC coordinates fundamental research on earthquake processes using Southern California
as its principal natural laboratory. This research program is investigator-driven andsupports core research and education in seismology, tectonic geodesy, earthquake geology,
and computational science. The SCEC community advances earthquake systemscience through three basic activities: (a) gathering information from seismic and geodetic
sensors, geologic field observations, and laboratory experiments; (b) synthesizing knowledgeof earthquake phenomena through physics-based modeling, including system-level hazard
modeling; and (c) communicating our understanding of seismic hazards to reduce
earthquake risk and promote community resilience.