For Emily Brodsky, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, this year's scientific meetings will be busier than usual as she receives multiple honors from the Geological Society of America (GSA) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Brodsky has been elected as a GSA Fellow in recognition of her distinguished contributions to the geosciences, and she was also chosen as the 2019 recipient of the GSA's George P. Woollard Award, given annually to recognize outstanding contributions to geology through the application of the principles and techniques of geophysics. As part of the award, she will give a talk at the 2019 GSA meeting in Phoenix in September.
Brodsky was also chosen to give the annual Beno Gutenberg Lecture at the AGU Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C., in December. The Gutenberg Lecture, part of the AGU's Bowie Lecture Series, honors the life and work of the renowned seismologist Beno Gutenberg, who directed the Seismological Laboratory at Caltech and made important contributions to earthquake seismology. Brodsky's lecture, titled "The Earthquake Problem," will highlight the multiplicity of approaches that must be brought to bear on studying earthquakes.
Brodsky studies the mechanics underlying earthquakes, addressing questions about the processes that trigger earthquakes and the constraining forces and processes that occur inside a fault zone during slip. Her recent work includes important findings about earthquakes induced by human activities in which fluids are injected deep underground (e.g., hydraulic fracturing, wastewater disposal, and geothermal wells). After the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan, Brodsky helped organize and lead a major international expedition to study the fault. In addition to her research on earthquakes, she also studies the seismology of volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, and rivers.
An AGU Fellow, Brodsky was awarded the AGU's James Macelwane Medal in 2008. In 2005, the Seismological Society of America recognized her with the inaugural Charles Richter Early Career Award. She earned her bachelor's degree at Harvard University and her Ph.D. at Caltech, and she joined the UCSC faculty in 2005.
