AWARDS
IN RECOGNITION OF OUTSTANDING AND ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS
The following are the scientists who received Tsunami Society International's 2014 Awards at the 6th International Tsunami Symposium at the Nicoya Campus of the National University of Costa Rica, 2-5 September 2014
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AWARDED IN 2014
At the 6th International Tsunami Symposium at the Nicoya Campus of the National University of Costa Rica
Professor Frank C. Lin
Professor Frank C. Lin was presented by Dr. Pararas-Carayannis the award of Tsunami Society International, commenting on Professor Lin's research work that qualified him for the award of the Society. Specifically he mentioned his wide experience with Database Management; Artificial Intelligence:- Expert Systems, Neural Networks, Time Series; External Sorting Algorithms; and Very High Precision Numerical Calculations.
PROFESSOR FRANK C. LIN
Professor Lin was born in Shanghai, China and later became U.S. Citizen. He attended school in Hong Kong and in 1957 received a B.E. (Civil Engineering) degree at Yale University. Subsequently in 1958 he received training in Theoretical Physics at the University of Goettingen in Sweden and in 1965 he received a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Yale University. Subsequently that same year he served as Research Associate in the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Chalmers Technical University iin Göteborg, Sweden. In 1970 he was Visiting Professor in the Department of Physics of the National Taiwan University, in Taipei. In 1976, he served as Instructor of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science at L.B.Wallace St. Jr. College, Andalusia, Ala. Subsequently in the summers of 1980,1981 and 1982 he continued with Graduate Studies in Computer Science, at the Polytechnic University of New York.
From 1986 to the present he has been Professor Emeritus in Computer Science of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, at Princess Anne, MD, USA. .Since 1991 he has been Visiting Professor at the Advanced and Virtual Intelligent Computer Center of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand and his teaching experience (in Computer Science) includes Programming Languages; Data Structure; Database Management; Artificial Intelligence:- Expert Systems, Neural Network, Time Series; External Sorting Algorithms and Very High Precision Numerical Calculations. Professor LIn is a member of Tsunami Society International and has published in the Society's journal SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS.
Professor Frank C. Link and his wife at the Banquet of the 6th International Tsunami Symposium in Costa Rica
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Dr. Robert T. Sewell
Dr. Robert T. Sewell was introduced by Tsunami Society International's Vice President, Professor Tad Murty and by Dr. Pararas-Carayannis, who presented him with the award of Tsunami Society International for his outstanding contributions in the safety and reliability evaluations of nuclear plants, oil exploration and production facilities, and mission-critical data centers.
DR. ROBERT T. SEWELL
Dr. Sewell is an Associate at Structural Integrity Associates (since 2013), President of R.T. Sewell Associates, Consulting (since 1994), and a periodic instructor as Adjunct Professor at California State University. He specializes in probabilistic hazard, risk, reliability and decision analyses, and related performance-based policy, for complex systems in the face of diverse natural and man-caused threats. He has 29 years of consulting experience in this specialty and has been involved in numerous studies and reviews for safety and reliability evaluations of nuclear plants, oil exploration and production facilities, and mission-critical data centers. He has also applied his expertise to: commercial, finance, banking and insurance; supercomputing facilities and information technologies; and global facilities management and business operations for large corporations.
His graduate education was at Stanford University, where he earned Ph.D., Engineer, and Master’s degrees in Engineering, with focus on application of probabilistic risk methods to earthquake engineering. He has taught numerous training courses in probabilistic hazard and risk assessment to hundreds of engineers and scientists internationally; and he has coded commercial hazard and risk software packages for both the insurance industry and engineering firms. He is also the co-author of an engineering mechanics textbook. He currently serves as external hazards specialist for the Swiss Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, and has participated in several missions for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and UNESCO. He also currently serves as a member of the ASME Joint Committee on Nuclear Risk Management (JCNRM), and in that capacity is leader of the sub-team on External Flooding.
Dr. Sewell particularly enjoys synthesizing knowledge and methods from the earth sciences for development of systematic approaches to engineering design and evaluation. Specifically concerning tsunamis, beyond his graduate education in earthquake engineering, Dr. Sewell has worked with the tsunami science community for the past 15 years and applied community models of tsunami behavior in the development of a probabilistic tsunami hazard assessment (PTHA) methodology for application to design of a LNG facility, including a risk-based tsunami warning system concept. Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Dr. Sewell was supported by Sun Microsystems to visit Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia as part of an educational mission to raise awareness among government agencies on benefits and approaches of risk-based warning systems for multiple hazards, including tsunamis. He has also performed a tsunami hazard study of a nuclear plant site in California, and has been working recently with the Southwest Research Institute on methodology development for tsunami risk assessment, including further advances in both PTHA and tsunami fragility assessment, in consideration of formal methods of uncertainty analysis. A principal goal of Dr. Sewell, in working as part of the tsunami science community, is to contribute to the realization and advancement of studies where uncertainties manifest as variations in expert interpretations among the informed technical community of tsunami scientists, are formally developed and addressed in engineering design and evaluation, for purposes of improved safety and resource allocation. Dr. Sewell is a member of Tsunami Society International and has published in the Society's journal SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS.
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Professor Boris Levin Wulfovich
Professor Boris Levin Wulfovich, Director of the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics of the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), was presented by Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis with the award of Tsunami Society International for his outstanding contributions in Tsunami Research and his leadership as Chairman of the Sakhalin Scientific Center of FEB RAS, as Head of the Russian Tsunami Committee and as Member of the Tsunami International Committe of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics. Dr. Pararas-Carayannis further reflected on their common experience in having both worked in the past with the late Academician Sergei Soloviev when he was Director of the Sakhalin Institute of the RAS.
Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis discussing Professor Levin's latest book “Physics of Tsunamis” which he co-authored with Professor M. Nosov (Springer, 2009), as an outstanding work of scholarship.
PROFESSOR BORIS LEVIN WULFOVICH
Professor Boris Levin Wulfovich, is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Professor and Director of the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics of the Far East Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Sakhalin Scientific Center of FEB RAS, and Head ofthe Russian Tsunami Committee and Member of the Tsunami International Committee of IUGG.
Professor Levin was born in Moscow. He graduated from Moscow Mining Institute in 1959 and worked as a mining engineer in some mines and institutes of the former Soviet Union. He received a PhD in 1961 and a Doctor of Science Degree (Phys&Math) in1990. Since 1973 he was invited by Prof. Sergei Soloviev to the Sakhalin Institute of the RAS and began to study a tsunami problem, taking also part in many tsunami expeditions in the Kuril Islands, the Okhotsk Sea, the Japan Sea and the Pacific. He served as head of the seismology and tsunami station in Kurilsk, as head of the Tsunami Experimental Laboratory at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (1972-1980) and thereafter served as Deputy Director of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research in Moscow (1993-2003). During that period he created and was the first head of the Sergei Soloviev Tsunami Laboratory in the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the RAS. As the Head of the Tsunami National Committee, Prof. Levin visited the Tsunami Warning Centers in Hawaii and in Alaska, and collaborated with researchers from the USA, Japan, Chile and Greece. Holding the position of Director since 2004 to the present, Prof. Levin made many expeditions in the Kuril Islands and along the coasts of Sakhalin Island for tsunami studies and in 2010 he was awarded by the Far East Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences the Academician Soloviev Prize, for his achievements in the study of natural hazards.
The book “Physics of Tsunamis” by B. Levin and M. Nosov (Springer, 2009) was marked by the science community and is now published by Springer, with a second edition planned for 2015. More of his activities at the Institute of Marine Geology and Geophysics (IMGG) FEB RAS can be seen by visiting the webside at http://ww.imgg.ru
Professor Boris Levin Wulfovich is a member of Tsunami Society International and has published in the Society's journal SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS. .
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Professor Aurelio Mercado-Irizarry
Professor Aurelio Mercado-Irizarry of the University of Puerto Rico was introduced by Tsunami Society International's Vice President, Professor Tad Murty and by Dr. Pararas-Carayannis, who presented him with the award of Tsunami Society International for his outstanding contributionsin Tsunami Research, his leadership of the Caribbean Tsunami Forecasting Team, his participation and key role in the USA National Tsunami and Coastal Inundation Hazard Risk Assessment and Research, as well as for organizing and chairing important tsunami conferences on behalf of the U.S. National Science Foundation, Sea Grant, the US. Corps of Engineers, the Seismological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union and other organizations.
PROFESOR AURELIO MERCADO-IRIZARRY
Professor Aurelio Mercado-Irizarry is a Physical Oceanographer with the Department of Marine Sciences/University of Puerto Rico/Mayaguez, P.R. He attended the University of Puerto Rico, the Joint Program in Oceanography of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Miami. He has been a member of the International Tsunami Commission of the International Union of Geophysics and Geodesy (IUGG). (1999 - 2013). Additionaly he served as Team Leader of the Caribbean Tsunami Forecasting Team, NOAA (2005 – 2009), was appointed to the Tsunami Scientific Steering Committee of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (IOCARIBE - UNESCO) in1996, and was a member of the Puerto Rico Tsunami Technical Review Committee (2004-2007).
Furthermore he has been a Member of the USA National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program Mapping and Modeling Sub-committee from 2006 to the present time and was named Chair and Inter-Session Chair of Working Group 1: Tsunami and Coastal Inundation Hazard Risk Assessment and Research, at the First Session of the IOC Intergovernmental Co-ordination Group for the Tsunami and other Coastal Hazards Warning System for the Caribbean Sea and Adjacent Regions, held at the United Nations House, in Bridgetown, Barbados, where he also served as a member of the USA Delegation (later renamed WG 2) (2006 – 2012). He was named as the liaison between the IUGG Tsunami Commission and the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Caribbean Early Warning System for Tsunamis and Other Coastal Hazards (2007 – 2013). Additionally he was named to UNESCO’s World Meteorological Organization advisory committee for Coastal Inundation Forecasting Demonstration Project in the Dominican Republic. (2010-2011). Furthermore he served as consultant on coastal flood mapping (storm surges and tsunamis) and on climate change of the Regional Risk Reduction Initiative, sponsored by the European Commission/UNDP (fo rall English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean islands) (2011 – 2013)
Professor Aurelio Mercado-Irizarry organized and chaired many conferences. Specifically, on June 11-13, 1997, in Mayaguez, P.R., he organized the “Caribbean Tsunami Workshop”, under the sponsorship of the University of Puerto Rico Sea Grant College Program, which was also co-sponsored by: UPR/RUM Center for Research and Development, Puerto Rico State Civil Defense, Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On December 19-21, 2000 he organized an Intra-Americas Sea Tsunami Meeting for the Caribbean Tsunami Warning Center which was held at the University of Puerto Rico's Mayaguez Campus (UPRM), and was sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO), NOAA, the Sea Grant College Program of UPRM and the Center for Research and Development of UPRM. In 2004, he organized the “National Science Foundation Caribbean Tsunami Workshop”, which was co-sponsored by:The Puerto Rico State Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Marine Sciences and the Sea Grant Program of the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, P.R. InMay 22-25 2007 he was o-convener of a conference o Neotectonics, the Tsunami Hazard and Monitoring at the Caribbean American Geophysical Union Joint Assembly in Acapulco, Mexico.
Additionally, in December of 1998, he chaired a "Tsunami Prediction Session" at the International Symposium on Marine Positioning (INSMAP98). in Melbourne, Florida. In March 23-24, 1999 he chaired the session "Tsunamis", at the USGS Workshop Regarding Seismic, Tsunami and Landslide Hazards in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, held at the College of Surveyors and Engineers, in San Juan, P.R. and in August 7-9, 2001, the Atlantic Atlantic Tsunami Session at the International Tsunami Symposium held at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA.. Also, in April 29-May 4, 2003 at the Seismological Society of America Annual Meeting held in, San Juan, Puerto Rico, he chaired the Tsunami Session: “Seismological Tools for the Advancement of Tsunamis Modeling and Warning”.
Professor Aurelio Mercado-Irizarry is member of Tsunami Society International, of the American Geophysical Union; of The Oceanography Society; ; and the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, and he is author of numerous publications and scientific reports.
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Professor Theofilos Toulkeridis
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Professor Theofilos Toulkeridis was presented by Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis, the award of Tsunami Society International for his outstanding work in risk assessment, risk reduction as well as in prevention and mitigation of natural hazards in Ecuador. In addition to presenting the award of Tsunami Society International, Dr. Pararas-Carayannis commented on the outstanding book written by Professor Theofilos Toulkeridis on the Gallapagos Islands.
PROFESSOR THEOFILOS TOULKERIIDIS
Theofilos Toulkeridis is Greek citizen born and raised in Germany. He studied in the Johannes Gutenberg University and at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz Germany where he obtained in 1992 his Masters degree in Geology and Paleontology. Later in 1996 he obtained his Ph.D. in Geology and Isotope Geochemistry in the same academic sites in conjunction with the Research Center of Surface Geochemistry in Strasbourg, France.
After some three years holding a postdoc position in Germany and France, he became full professor in Ecuador. As lecturer-researcher he has been involved in risk assessment, risk reduction as well as in prevention and mitigation of natural hazards. His focus is based mainly in seismic, volcanic and tsunami research.
Professor Toulkeridis is a national member of the geophysical section of the Panamerican Institute of Geography and History, Instructor in Disaster Risk Reduction of USAID-OFDA and official consultant of the Presidency and various ministers besides other strategic organizations in Ecuador on issues of natural hazards. He is author, co-author and editor of a variety of publications and books, some in three languages. His research has been awarded several times inside and outside of Ecuador. Professor Toulkeridis is a member of Tsunami Society International and has published in the Society's journal SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS.
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SCIENCE OF
TSUNAMI HAZARDS
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