Elizabeth Scott Cochran is a seismologist known for her work on early warning systems for earthquakes and human-induced earthquakes.

Education and career

As a middle-school student living in California, Cochran experiences the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Cochran has a B.S. from the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

(2000) and went on to earn an M.Sc.(2003) and a Ph.D.(2005) from the University of California. Following her Ph.D. Cochran was a postdoctoral investigator at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

. From 2007 until 2011 Cochran was an assistant professor at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

, until she joined the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

Research

Cochran's early research was on the impact of the 1999 Hector Mine earthquake. Her subsequent work examined the geographic extent of earthquake damage, and defined the factors that lead to the

2011 Oklahoma earthquake The 2011 Oklahoma earthquake was a 5.7 magnitude intraplate earthquake which occurred near Prague, Oklahoma on November 5 at 10:53 p.m. CDT (03:53 UTC November 6) in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The epicenter of the ear ...

. In 2006, Cochran co-foundered of

Quake-Catcher Network The Quake-Catcher Network is an initiative run by the University of Southern California that aims to use computer-based accelerometers to detect earthquakes. It uses the BOINC volunteer computing platform (a form of distributed computing A di ...

, a crowd-sourced program that detects earthquakes. Quake-Cather Network was able to track the 2008 Reno earthquakes. The original idea was to use laptops to track earthquakes, but as the project evolved it outfitted citizen scientists with

seismometers A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outpu ...

which are used to detect earthquakes. Later, Cochran was the lead scientist for

ShakeAlert ShakeAlert is an earthquake early warning system (EEW) in the United States, developed and operated by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and its partners. As of 2021, the system issues alerts for the country's West Coast (specifically ...

, an early warning system for earthquakes in the western United States.

Selected publications

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Awards and honors

In 2006 Cochran received the Doris M. Curtis Outstanding Woman in Science Award from the

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hitchco ...

. In 2010 Cochran received a

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. The White ...

, which is an honor given to early career scientists in the United States.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cochran, Elizabeth Living people University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Santa Barbara United States Geological Survey personnel Seismologists Women geologists Year of birth missing (living people)