Susan Schwartz, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, has been elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The AGU fellows are a select group of distinguished scientists who have made exceptional contributions to their research fields and attained scientific eminence in the Earth and space sciences.
Schwartz is a seismologist with expertise in the mechanical behavior of the plate interface at subduction zones, where converging plates of the Earth's crust generate powerful earthquakes. She has done extensive field research in Costa Rica, one of the most earthquake-prone and volcanically active countries in the world, where her work has contributed to the understanding of the full spectrum of fault slip, including slow slip events or "silent earthquakes." Schwartz also studies how glaciers slip over their beds in Antarctica. With colleagues at other UC campuses, she developed an innovative systemwide online class on the Geology of the National Parks to improve undergraduate Earth sciences literacy.
Schwartz received a B.S. in geophysics from Brown University and a Ph.D. in seismology from the University of Michigan. She came to UC Santa Cruz in 1988 as a UC President's postdoctoral fellow and joined the faculty in 1994.
The 2016 AGU fellows will be recognized during an honors tribute in December at the 2016 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
