Wow! It certainly has been some time since my last post! First and foremost in this update is kudos for the official launch of ShakeAlert for the State of Oregon yesterday. This has been a monumental effort by Doug Toomey and the Oregon Hazards Laboratory for the past few years, essentially starting from nothing, finding funding, building a team, and creating infrastructure. Doug has shared how this project has changed his views on scientific research over the past few years as his role has transitioned from pure research to applied research, community engagement, and directorship. I am very grateful to have Doug as a PhD research advisor and to be a part of this program in the Oregon Hazards Lab as a graduate researcher. This is a very exciting time for me in the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Oregon.
Yesterday, I also concluded the second term in my PhD geophysics program (incidentally my calculator also died during the last class of the day). The first term covered structural geology and scientific communication. This past term covered hydrogeology and statistical data analysis–and it was the most busy academic term I have experienced in any college program. I am now retooling for the spring term. I will be attending a single class covering earth systems observations–a topic I am much more passionate about than the previous topics I mentioned. Since I am taking only one class, and a fairly light one, I will putting significant time toward major research.
These past few weeks I began analyzing records downloaded from the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Information System. While this work is primarily oriented around geochemistry and not geophysics, I hope it will yield a paper at some point. The analyses is preliminary, creating and testing statistical procedures on a small portion of the data that can be exported to the entire dataset at a later point. Not only do I wish to see a publication, but hope to gain more exposure to NWIS and more experience performing statistics on larger datasets. My involvement with this project is secondary as it falls on the periphery of my research interests. I am in discussions with another researcher to begin preliminary studies on the critical zone structure of the High Cascades–this will be a primary effort for me. Additionally, I am shopping for another major project over the coming months. I am hoping to find one centered on the high plains region of Oregon. Lastly, I have been tasked with building small-scale sensory devices to assist with delivering an upper-level undergraduate class on environmental sensor systems over the fall term. These will keep me busy, but I do not believe I will be overwhelmed.
Now that my time has been freed from the constant challenge of keeping up with rotating class assignments, I am hoping to make more frequent blog posts. Today I uploaded nearly three dozen photos to my photography portfolio from various trips I have taken across the United States in the past two years. These new photos have also been added to the rotating header on this website. I am also thrilled to see that one of the photos I took of the Sister’s Arches near Tillamook, OR was selected for the rotating carousel on the Oregon Hazards Lab website. The most thrilling experience over the past two years of travel was a late afternoon private aircraft ride over Crater Lake National Park this past January. Four of the photos I uploaded this morning were taken during that flight.
