Elections 2023
Nominating Committee
Chair: Joyce Sim Shi, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Ebru Bozdag, Colorado School of Mines
- Cathy Constable, University of California San Diego
Executive Committee
Ranked-choice voting (1 seat)
EC 1 (3 years)
Alice Gabriel, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD and Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich [website]
My research combines multi-physics numerical modeling, high-performance computing (HPC), theoretical analysis and innovative observational techniques in order to understand earthquakes across scales: from earthquake-tsunami interaction to fracture network activation in geo-reservoirs. I believe that profound insight into these processes comes from pursuing a “physics-based” approach. However, reality is complex - thus, incorporating the observed natural complexity invariably involves the use of numerical methods, highly efficient simulation software and/or supercomputing infrastructure. I am co-leading the development of innovative, open-source computational methods for seismological applications and beyond (e.g., SeisSol, Tandem, ExaHyPE) and received the PRACE Ada Lovelace Award in HPC and the SSA Charles F. Richter Early Career Award in 2020 and an AGU James B. Macelwane Award this year. I have been engaged in the leadership of several large-scale European infrastructure consortia, such as the ChEESE Center of Excellence targeting the preparation of community flagship codes for the upcoming Exascale supercomputing era. As a member of CIG’s Executive Committee I aim to promote diversity and inclusiveness, sustainable open source and community software, as well as interdisciplinary, joint pathways for geosciences and scientific computing.
D. Sarah Stamps, Virginia Tech [website]
The CIG community, software, and outreach efforts provide effective avenues for collaborative, reproducible Earth science using advanced computational tools. Members of the CIG community have made world-class software packages broadly available, several of which my research group and I employ to investigate problems in continental rifting, fault mechanics, volcano-tectonic interactions, and glacial isostatic adjustment (ASPECT, PyLith, SELEN). Beyond leveraging CIG software, I have had the honor of serving as a CIG Distinguished Lecturer and am currently a member of the CIG Education Working Group. If elected to the CIG Executive Committee, I would be honored to play a key role in executing and coordinating the new initiatives of CIG-IV.
Daniel Trugman, University of Nevada Reno [website]
My research focuses on developing and applying new techniques to analyze large seismic datasets with an aim to better understand earthquake rupture processes and their connection to earthquake hazards. I am broadly interested in advancing earthquake science and hazard mitigation by leveraging data science and scientific machine learning alongside high-fidelity physical modeling. I am the lead developer for several software packages that are widely used by the seismological research community and am a strong proponent for open science. I also enjoy teaching scientific computing fundamentals to students at all levels and across disciplines in the geosciences (and beyond!). I find the most rewarding part of my job is helping others to achieve their scientific goals and learn new things about the universe, whether through software I’ve developed or through computational skills I’ve helped teach. I would bring this mindset and experience to the CIG leadership team, where I would advocate in particular for early career researchers interested in computational geosciences, whose potential is immense but without always the opportunities to match.
Science Steering Committee
Ranked-choice voting (2 seats)
SSC1 (3 years)
Bryant Chow, University of Alaska, Fairbanks [website]
I am a computational seismologist working in the field of adjoint tomography, a seismic imaging method that leverages high-fidelity seismic wave propagation simulations on high performance computers to generate models of Earth structure. SPECFEM, one of CIGs flagship codes, is a central software in my research.
I value CIGs mission to support our community through their emphasis on the importance of open-source software development, training, and innovation. As lead developer on open-source workflow and data processing tools, SeisFlows and Pyatoa, I have gained first hand experience with the development process. In line with CIGs goal of community training, I developed and hosted a virtual SPECFEM Users Workshop in 2022, which had close to 200 participants learning to run seismic simulations and modeling.
If elected to the Science Steering Committee, I will bring my expertise in computational seismology and code development to help drive the scientific needs of CIG. Adhering to the organization's mission to advance Earth science through a collaborative, inclusive, and forward-looking leadership role in the community, I aim to maintain their efforts in focusing attention on the importance of software development efforts within our community.
Qinya Liu, University of Toronto [website]
As a computational seismologist working on applying accurate numerical simulations of seismic waves to map the Earth's interior through full-waveform inversions, I became involved with CIG at its inception as a graduate student developing the SPECFEM3D and SPEFEM3D_GLOBE packages. Over the years, like many computational geophysicists, I have benefited tremendously from the involvement in the CIG community, including the numerous workshops and webinars. Interacting with fellow coders and CIG community members, I came to treasure CIG as an invaluable training and development platform built around open-source code sharing, with an emphasis on both scientific and technological advancement and interdisciplinary collaboration.
I am extremely honored to be nominated as a candidate for the Science Steering Committee. As our field continues to embrace the explosion of geophysical data and substantial advances in high-performance computing, I believe CIG is uniquely positioned to bring together the geophysicists and computer scientists to maintain, improve and develop a set of high-quality codes to address critical and challenging scientific problems. I hope to leverage my experience in developing the SPECFEM packages and their inversion capabilities, as well as in high-performance scientific computing and large-scale infrastructure consortia, to facilitate and support the continued development of sustainable open-source community softwares in CIG. I will also continue to advocate for more community involvement by graduate students and early career scientists, and promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive research environment for the community.
Ross McGuire, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign [website]
My primary research focuses on using the tools of seismology to probe the interior structure and dynamics of the Earth, as well as other planets and moons in the Solar System. I am particularly interested in using full waveform seismic tomography to image the crust and mantle in volcanically active regions. To do this, much of my work relies on using physics-based seismic waveform modeling tools hosted by CIG, including AxiSEM and Specfem3D. Additionally, during my PhD, I also worked with mantle convection simulation codes and mineral physics toolboxes. Thus, I think my diverse experience with geophysical modeling tools would position me well to serve as a member of the CIG Science Steering Committee.
I understand the importance of CIG’s mission to develop and maintain accessible well documented community science codes and have personally benefited from these efforts. I have also been involved in community software development, such as the CIG-hosted “AVNI” seismology toolbox. As a member of the CIG Science Steering Committee, I would be excited to support CIG’s mission of advancing Earth Science through providing infrastructure and development of geophysics software. I would be particularly enthusiastic about supporting efforts to provide supercomputing access to the Earth Science community through the ACCESS Science Gateway program, which is a valuable resource for helping researchers acquire their own allocations. I would also be excited to be involved in future developments of the CIG Webinar series.
SSC2 (3 years)
Sylvain Barbot, University of Southern California [website]
I am an expert in rock mechanics, earthquake science, and numerical modeling. My candidacy for the Science Steering Committee is driven by my profound commitment to advancing geodynamics research and supporting the geosciences community. My journey in geodynamics has been deeply intertwined with the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG), where I have been actively engaged for several years as a code developer, leadership member, and founding member of the Seismic Cycle Working Group. During this time, I have contributed to the community through my work on the open-source software Relax, which empowers scientists to probe the mechanical properties of the lithosphere. More recently, I have spearheaded the development of open-source software designed to simulate every phase of the seismic cycle. My involvement with CIG thus far has instilled in me a deep appreciation for the collaborative ethos that defines our community. The invaluable partnership between CIG and the Journal of Open-Source Software (JOSS) has underscored the importance of setting high technical standards for our publications. I recognize the symbiotic relationship between these entities, as CIG nurtures the community by facilitating the development of pertinent software. If elected to the Science Steering Committee, I am committed to advocating for policies and practices that encourage developers to contribute their codes to our community. Fostering an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing is pivotal in propelling new discoveries in earthquake science. Witnessing the positive impact CIG has on budding scientists, I am inspired to dedicate my time and expertise to furthering CIG's objectives
Christopher Davies, University of Leeds [website]
My research is focused on understanding the dynamics and evolution of Earth’s deep interior. I am particularly interested in the generation of Earth’s magnetic field by fluid motion in its electrically conducting outer core and the manner in which this process is controlled by the overlying mantle and the solid inner core. To this end, I design theoretical and numerical models that describe the thermodynamic evolution of the core-mantle system, convection in rotating fluids (including double diffusion and two-phase flows), and planetary magnetic field generation. In this research I routinely use HPC facilities at local and national level and have been involved in community benchmarking exercises to validate existing codes and investigate their potential performance on the next generation of supercomputers.
If elected to the Science Steering Committee, I would support initiatives that develop efficient, modular and extendable code and efforts that seek to support broad research communities through training and outreach. I am also interesting in building open community-wide databases of model-based outputs in order to i) support the transparency and reproducibility of computational data; ii) enable a step-change in the scale of systematic and comparative modelling studies by combining data from different groups, methodologies, tools, etc.; iii) make model-based outputs accessible to researchers working outside traditional modelling communities.
Robert Moucha, Syracuse University [website]
My primary research interests are in computational geophysics with a focus on geodynamic modeling coupled with models of landscape evolution. Such models, together with independent geophysical techniques and geological observations, provide a roadmap for a greatly improved understanding of the tectonic evolution of our planet. My research topics span both spatial and temporal scales and include coupled models of continental extension and landscape evolution, surface deformation in response to flat-slab subduction, plume lithosphere interaction, melt generation in the mantle, coupled models of magma intrusion and CO2 exsolution, global models of dynamic topography and implications for long-term sea level change. Inherent to my research is high-performance computing and the use of geodynamic modeling tools such as CitcomS, ASPECT, and PyLith. For landscape evolution modeling I readily use both Fastscape and Badlands. I have also developed my own geodynamics code based on I2ELVIS that is coupled with Fastscape. If elected to the Science Steering Committee I will be committed to continuing and forging new relationships that CIG has with the global geodynamics community, the landscape evolution community, the broader scientific community, and the public. I have relied on the available CIG resources since its inception, and I want to ensure that these resources are available and meet the needs of future generations of scientists.