The following Oregon State University faculty members have expertise related to earthqaukes and tsunamis and are willing to speak with journalists. Their specific expertise, and contact information, is listed below. For help with other OSU faculty experts, contact Sean Nealon, 541-737-0787, sean.nealon@oregonstate.edu.

Earthquakes

Andre Barbosa, 541-737-7291, andre.barbosa@oregonstate.edu
Barbosa is a professor of structural engineering and the Glenn Willis Holcomb Professor in Structural Engineering at OSU, where he is an expert on performance of buildings and bridges during extreme events.

  • Building and bridge performance during earthquakes and tsunamis.

  • Design of building and bridges to withstand earthquakes and tsunamis.

  • Why structures collapse during earthquake and tsunamis.

  • Post-earthquake and tsunami recovery.

Bob Dziak, 541-867-0175; robert.p.dziak@noaa.gov
Dziak is a marine geologist who uses an array of hydrophones coordinated by the U.S. Navy to “listen” to undersea earthquakes and learn more about the large-scale and small-scale seismic activity of ocean regions around the world.

  • Earthquake “swarms” off Oregon.
  • Seismic activity in the world’s oceans
  • Earthquakes in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica

Chris Higgins, 541-737-8869, chris.higgins@oregonstate.edu
Higgins is a professor of structural engineering and Slayden Construction Faculty Fellow at OSU, where he is an expert on structural performance during earthquakes.

  • Building and bridge performance during earthquakes
  • Design of building and bridges to withstand earthquakes
  • Why structures collapse during earthquake

Ben Leshchinsky, 541-737-8873, ben.leshchinsky@oregonstate.edu

Leshchinsky is a professor and Richardson Chair at OSU, where he is an expert on landslide hazards and their impacts.

  • Evaluating earthquake-driven landslides and associated hazard cascades.
  • Characterizing the influence of climate change and climatic factors on landslide and debris flow hazards (e.g. extreme storm events, coastal retreat, wildfire, thawing permafrost).
  • Assessing landslide impacts to infrastructure and communities.

Andrew Meigs, 541-737-1214; meigsa@geo.oregonstate.edu 
Meigs, a geoscientist who heads the geology program at OSU, studies structural geology and the geology of earthquakes, and has conducted research on faults in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, the Los Angeles basin and South America.

  • Structural geology
  • The geology of earthquakes
  • Tectonics and topography

Armin Stuedlein, 541-737-3111, Armin.Stuedlein@oregonstate.edu
Stuedlein is a professor of geotechnical engineering at OSU, where he is an expert on earthquake-induced liquefaction and cyclic softening of soils and soil-structure interaction.

  • Soil liquefaction and strength loss during earthquakes including structure movements and co-seismic landsliding
  • Building and bridge foundation performance during earthquakes
  • Design of building and bridge foundations to withstand earthquakes

Anne Trehu, 541-737-2655; trehu@coas.oregonstate.edu
Anne Tréhu is a marine geophysicist and seismologist who studies the relationship between geologic structure and earthquakes.  Her research includes using seismic imaging and other geophysical techniques to generate models of subsurface structure and locating earthquakes within those structures.  Several recent field programs have focused on imaging earth structure in Chile, where information is available on crustal deformation preceding, during and after several very large (magnitude >8) earthquakes. 

  • Pacific and North American tectonic plate structures
  • Pacific Northwest seismology arrays
  • Crustal structure of subduction zones, focusing on Cascadia and Chile
  • The relationship between earth structure, ground shaking and tsunami generation

Tsunamis

Dan Cox, 541-737-3631 (or 541-737-4934); dan.cox@oregonstate.edu
Cox is a professor of coastal and ocean engineering at OSU, where he studies the impact of tsunamis and ocean waves on coastal structures. He can discuss how tsunamis vary in “behavior” as the approach coastal areas, depending on terrain, and the resulting damage they may induce.

  • Design and performance of coastal structures, particularly during tsunamis
  • Effect of near-shore ocean terrain on tsunami “behavior”

Harry Yeh, 541-737-8057 (or 541-737-4934); harry.yeh@oregonstate.edu
Yeh holds the Miles Lowell and Margaret Watt Edwards Distinguished Chair in Engineering at OSU, where he is a leading international expert on tsunamis. He can discuss the processes by which earthquakes trigger tsunamis, recent major events around the world, and tsunami hazard mitigation.

  • The mechanics of tsunamis
  • Major tsunamis around the world
  • Tsunami hazard mitigation