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CORVALLIS - A workshop will be held in Portland on March 19 for researchers, engineers, businesspeople and others interested in the newly formed Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES), an $80-million project funded by the National Science Foundation.

The network links earthquake-related research facilities and scientists at more than 25 universities, including Oregon State University and its College of Engineering.

The workshop is co-hosted by OSU computer science professor Cherri Pancake, who last year played a key role in securing almost $5 million of the NSF funding to construct on the OSU campus the world's largest and most-wired tsunami wave tank, a key element of the NEES project.

Pancake says the Portland workshop, one of 20 regional NEES workshops being held worldwide in the coming weeks, is an important step in building the earthquake simulation network. The system will feature high-performance networking, shared databases, computer modeling and simulation tools, and "telepresence" capabilities that could transform earthquake engineering and ultimately save lives.

"This workshop is important because OSU engineering's tsunami wave tank and all the other NEES-specialized laboratories are for the benefit of the entire earthquake engineering community," Pancake said. "So we want to gather input from other researchers and professional engineers about what kinds of information, training, and access they would like to see.

"All of us involved with NEES want to make the facilities as useful, and usable, as they possibly can be," she added. "And we can only do this with input and suggestions from the broader community."

The workshop will be from 1-4 p.m. at the Oregon Center for Advanced Technical Education in the Capital Center. Additional details about the workshop and registration information are available at: http://www.nees.org/workshops/main.html, or by calling Bob Reitherman, 510-231-9557. More information about NEES is available at: http://www.nees.org.