Elections 2018
2018 Nominating Committee
- Chair: Sabine Stanley, Johns Hopkins U.
- Magali Billen, UC Davis
- Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, UCLA
2018 Slate of Candidates
Executive Committee
Vote for 2.
Susanne Buiter, Geological Survey of Norway and the University of Oslo, Norway [link] @susannebuiter
My work as numerical modeler focusses on questions concerning crust and lithosphere dynamics. I use finite-element models to investigate the evolution of rifted continental margins and subduction zones, but I also look at the interaction between tectonics and surface processes and links between numerical and laboratory (cm-scale sandbox) models. I am co-developer of finite-element code SULEC and organizer of community model benchmarks.
I look forward to helping CIG serve the geodynamic modeling community. CIG plays strong roles in software development for a wide range of computational problems, in training, and in community building. Codes in several fields, including long-term tectonics, have reached a stage that new physics and numerical techniques can be explored. If elected, I aim to focus on supporting such new code development directions, in addition to initiatives in open data, community building, and online training. I propose to pursue platforms for sharing modelling successes, but also failures, since a lot can be learned from negative results (and at the least, it can be prevented that others rerun experiments that are proven not to work). I would work towards facilitating links between CIG and the numerical modelling community in a broad sense, specifically strengthening ties to initiatives in Europe aimed at bringing modelers together. I am member of CIG’s Long Term Tectonics group since 2016 and CIG International Affiliate member for many years.
Katie Cooper, Washington State University [link]
I have served on CIG’s Science Steering Committee since 2016 and acted as chair of the SSC for the past two years. During that time, I helped launch CIG’s Speaker Series and revamp our Code of Conduct. I also helped organize the popular Coupled Surface and Tectonic Processes Workshop this past spring in Boulder, CO. I am eager to continue to help CIG grow to meet the changing computational needs of our communities as well to help shepherd and champion CIG during its next evolution (next NSF funding request). CIG has benefited my career at every stage, so I am keenly invested in its success and betterment. I am an Associate Professor at Washington State University studying lithospheric dynamics, mantle convection, and planetary evolution.
Margarete Jadamec, University at Buffalo, SUNY [link]
My research focuses on the dynamics of subduction, mantle flow, and lithospheric deformation, with methods involving data integration, 3D visualization, and high-performance computing. I currently hold a joint appointment in the Department of Geology and in the Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering Program at UB. I have more than a decade of experience using CIG supported geodynamics codes and am the author of an open source software program, TECT_Mod3D, that generates complex 3D plate boundary configurations. If elected to the CIG Executive Committee, I will focus on establishing reproducible research methods for large parallel simulations in the CIG community. Large-scale parallel simulations have been transformative for geodynamics research. However, sharing model input and output, reproducing published results, and building upon computations to solve more complex problems still pose significant challenges. Given my experience in large-scale simulations of natural subduction zones, this is an issue I have begun working on by partnering with the University Libraries, in particular working with the Institutional Repositories as stewards of modern digital scientific contributions. I am currently a member of the CIG Mantle Convection Working Group (2015-present), Chair of the AGU Centennial and Communications Committee for Tectonophysics (2018-2019), and served on the AGU Fall Meeting Program Committee (2015-2017) and the CIG Computational Science Working Group (2013-2015).
Louis Moresi, University of Melbourne [link]
I have been closely aligned with CIG since the very first planning meeting. Many in CIG will be familiar with the open-source software I have co-developed: I was the original architect of Citcom and of Ellipsis, and I have led the development of Underworld for the past decade. I am a strong supporter of open source, community software, open access publication and reproducible science which are deeply interwoven concepts. I have recently been involved in projects to allow publication of papers that contain live-code and can be also deployed on HPC facilities and I would like to use a continued leadership role in CIG to drive international uptake of these ideas. CIG has been one of the world leaders in supporting open science in geodynamics (in the widest sense) and in ensuring that our community is an agent of innovation in the Earth Sciences. A culture of innovation also requires stability and continuity to allow ideas to flourish; this is one of the most important roles that CIG has played and must continue to play in computational geodynamics.
Science Steering Committee
3 positions. Vote for 1 in each pair.
Position 1
Anna Kelbert, USGS [link]
My specialty is magnetotellurics and global electromagnetic geophysics. In these disciplines, I develop methods and large-scale modeling codes that are in active use in the electromagnetic community, as well as process and interpret observational data, and maintain open source software and a database. I have also been involved with the NSF's EarthCube since its inception, and I am currently an active member of the EarthCube Leadership Council. Scientifically, I am most interested in hands on multi-disciplinary approaches to geodynamic modeling. One person's input or assumption is another person's output, and bridging the disciplinary gaps in communication is a critical step from conceptual understanding towards realistic Earth modeling, data assimilation and prediction. I am very familiar with the challenges related to long-term community code maintenance, scientific reproducibility using workflow sharing, and credit attribution for open-source software development, as well as with model coupling and metadata for modeling software, and would be happy to contribute my experience and perspectives to the CIG, if elected to the SSC.
Krista Soderlund, University of Texas, Austin [link]
My research is focused on the dynamics of planetary interiors, from their cores and mantles to their oceans and ice shells. I am an active user of the CIG supported dynamo code Rayleigh, serving as a member of the Geodynamo Working Group and as a beta tester of the code since 2015. In addition, I collaborate with several groups using CitcomS/CU. I am, therefore, able to work broadly across different scientific disciplines that use and benefit from CIG's software and community. As a member of the Science Steering Committee, my goal would be to help foster cross-disciplinary science.
Position 2
Jacky Austermann, Columbia/LDEO [link]
In my work, which lies at the interface between geodynamics and paleo climate research, I try to understand how internal and external forces have shaped Earth’s topography, changed sea level, and affected ice sheets over geologic time.
Over the past five years I’ve been an active contributor and user of CIG’s mantle convection code ASPECT and have participated in its past five hackathons. This has exposed me to CIG’s friendly community, its open source culture and their efforts for best practices in code citation, which I find truly inspiring.
Providing easily accessible and usable code is fundamental to scientific progress and I would therefore be excited to be part of the CIG’s Science Steering Committee and guide CIG’s efforts towards new discoveries and exciting research. If elected I would continue to foster the open source culture, encourage educational events such as tutorials and hackathons, and promote links between CIG and the broader Earth science community to fully harness the computational advances.
Ebru Bozdag, Colorado School of Mines [link]
My research interests lie in computational seismology. I use 3D numerical seismic wave simulations to improve our understanding of Earth’s interior and its dynamics, and have extensive experience in performing large-scale structural adjoint inversions on various HPC systems. I have been one of the committee members of the CIG Seismology working group since 2017 and was a lecturer at the 2017 CIG-LLNL Computational Seismology Workshop. I have also been (co-)organizing computational geophysics and seismology sessions at EGU (European Geosciences Union) since 2014 and was the domain co-chair for solid Earth dynamics at PASC18 (The Platform for Advanced Scientific Computing) in 2018. I am an active user of SPECFEM3D_GLOBE and SPECFEM3D packages and also take part in the development of these wave propagation solvers as well as pre- and post-processing tools for full-waveform inversions.
Dramatic increase in the amount of high-quality seismic data and advances in HPC systems provide transformative opportunities to explore our planet. In this regard CIG has had a successful and crucial role to sustain computational research in geosciences. I would be happy to serve in CIG’s Science Steering Committee to further promote 1) open-source public codes (for numerical simulations, data processing and visualization) and their maintenance, 2) the management of large-scale workflows to take the full advantage of HPC resources and big data, and for reproducibility in science. Furthermore, I aim to support CIG’s training and outreach programs to reach a wider community, particularly to young scientists.
Position 3
Cedric Thieulot, University of Utrecht [link]
I look forward to helping CIG by serving on its Science Steering Committee. CIG has proved to be a key player in the field of computational geodynamics in the past decade by providing the community with well-documented open source softwares and by fostering international collaboration.
I have been part of CIG's Long Term Tectonics group since 2017 and have participated to all five ASPECT hackathons. My background is in crust and lithosphere dynamics. I am the developer of the ELEFANT code and I have been using ASPECT for the past 6 years for research and teaching. I am (co-)author of 3 articles with ASPECT, and 4 more submitted/in preparation. If elected, I will work to strengthen CIG's presence in Europe and to ensure that its software is used by researchers and students alike.
Cian Wilson, Carnegie DTM [link]
My role as a computational scientist is to develop and maintain numerical software for a range of research projects and users in computational geosciences. These range in size and scope from large-scale Stokes-flow mantle or magneto-hydrodynamic outer-core simulations to smaller regional and lab-scale multi-phase models of fluid migration, such as at subduction zones and mid-ocean ridges. For these simulations I use, develop or contribute to a range of codes, including Fluidity, TerraFERMA, and the CIG model Rayleigh. All of these are open-source and have been developed with best software development practices in mind. I believe these practices are necessary for robust scientific inquiry using numerical models and strongly support CIG's efforts to make them mainstream across the geodynamic community. I am particularly interested in recent numerical libraries that allow a large degree of flexibility when composing models. The software framework TerraFERMA, which is built on the FEniCS, PETSc and SPuD libraries, is my attempt to harness that flexibility in my own research while also introducing a degree of robustness and reproducibility to published models. If elected I would continue to support the excellent work of CIG enhancing the use of numerical software in geoscience research and hope to discuss how users can gain better access to and education about the increasing number of advanced numerical libraries in a well verified and validated manner.