SCEC INSTANeT News
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SCEC INSTANeT News |
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SCEC 2000 Annual Meeting SCEC/USGS CEO Awards |
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Many scientists, students and others in the SCEC community work with the SCEC Communication, Education, and Outreach (CEO) Team on a regular basis, and many are involved with other education and/or knowledge transfer activities. As members of the SCEC Community their efforts and contributions should be acknowledged as an integral part of SCEC's CEO effort. The awards were inaugurated in 1998 as a way to publicly acknowledge the efforts of the people whose outreach activities have reached the most people, had the greatest impact on a particular community, or best communicated earthquake research. This year SCEC partnered with the USGS
to choose award recipients. Two scientists were chosen to receive
the SCEC/USGS CEO Award: Dr. Thomas Henyey and Dr. Mark Legg.
A third award recipient, Dr. Ross Stein, was chosen last year
but did not receive his award until this year.
By Jill Andrews Given the diversity and overwhelming number of CEO activities conducted by SCEC scientists each year, I find it nearly impossible to decide who should receive what we refer to as the "Uber Award." This particular award was created to honor the extraordinary community involvement efforts of one member of the SCEC Community each year. While at the 2000 SCEC annual meeting in September, we were once again faced with an A-list of scientists who went above and beyond the call -- people who volunteered their precious discretionary time to mentor students, attend California Earth science month events, deliver public lectures, conduct lecture sessions and activities for K-12 teachers and/or museum educators, serve on special project committees, grant interviews to television, radio and print reporters, consult to officials in local government, lead field trips, review educational products, or write public awareness pieces and newspaper or magazine articles. While poring over the support material contributed on behalf of dozens of scientists, we realized that one person whose name was not submitted has in fact "been there and done that" many times over: Tom Henyey, SCEC's own director since 1996. Yes, we fudged a bit on our own guidelines, which state that no staff member of SCEC is eligible for the award (just like supermarket sweepstakes) -- but since Tom Jordan (USC / SCEC) has recently been appointed by the SCEC Board to lead the Center through its transition year and into the future, we felt justified to consider Henyey a lead contender for the prize. With great pleasure, I now qualify this obvious choice. For the six years I have been with SCEC, I've observed Henyey's tireless commitment to educating all he meets about the fantastic phenomena of the Earth he studies. His direct, almost disarmingly easy manner draws in student and non-student alike. He is one of a handful of scientists I personally know (and I know hundreds!) who can converse freely in highly technical jargon among his peers and then translate it all into understandable language for those of us who think "orogeny" is the technical term for a ticklish spot on one's anatomy, any "fault" is someone else's, and the word "creep" applies to the guy who peddles drugs at the local junior high school. I've known him to fly to Washington, D.C. to inform politicians on the Hill about earthquake-related issues, fly back to California on the red-eye, and arise before dawn to deliver a lively, interesting presentation to L.A. City Park Rangers on local faults. I've witnessed his enthusiasm as he co-wrote with KFWB's Jack Popejoy (and then recorded for broadcast) dozens of one-minute "spots" for the station's popular series "LA Underground." I've heard him patiently explain the implications of earthquake probability to engineering geologists, land use planners, city councils, insurers, and a host of other audiences in countless workshops, public meetings, field trips to local faults, and private briefings. I've seen him help K12 teacher trainers piece together middle school and high school level curricula based on our most recent research. I've goaded him into writing hundreds of pages of text on behalf of education and outreach --and we've all read his thoughtful commentaries in "From the Director" in both SCEC's Quarterly Newsletter and INSTANeT News Service. I've pushed him into media briefings and onto TV studio sets to answer the questions no Earth scientist wants to address: "So, when will you be able to predict earthquakes?" Year after year, Henyey manages to juggle a heavy teaching load, mentor his graduate students, deal with the day-to-day demands of running an NSF Science and Technology Center, and still give ample time and attention to nurturing and encouraging the growth of the SCEC CEO program. So this is to thank you, Tom Henyey, for
your priceless contribution to the promotion of Earth science
to the community-at-large. Thank you for all the years of successful
leadership among your peers, and for courageously acting as a
role model for other scientists interested in giving back to
society more than is professionally required.
MARK LEGG (Excellence in Communication, Education, and Outreach)
Ross Stein (1999 Awardee)
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