BOD Election 2020 - Candidate Profile

Cynthia Ebinger

Marshall Heape Chair

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Tulane University

https://ebinger.wp.tulane.edu/

EDUCATION and EMPLOYMENT

2017 - Present Marshall-Heape Chair, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences Tulane University
2006 - 2016 Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences University of Rochester
2006 - 2010 Adjunct Professor Royal Holloway, University of London
2002 - 2006 Professor Royal Holloway, University of London
1991 - 1998 Lecturer, Department of Earth Sciences University of Leeds
1990 - 1991 NATO Postdoctoral Fellow Leeds University
1988 - 1990 National Academy of Sciences Research Assoc. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
1983 - 1988 MIT WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography

SERVICE to NSF SAGE

2011 - 2013 PASSCAL Steering Committee
1999 - 2005 Board of Directors, Seis-UK
1999 £2,000,000 with Leicester, Cambridge, Leeds and linked with 2001 NERC grant, Continental break-up above a mantle plume: with Leicester and Leeds.

Selected Other Service to the Seismological Community

2019 - 2020 President-Elect American Geophysical Union College of Fellows
2019 - Present International Lithosphere Panel US Delegate from COSEG
2014 - 2020 National Academy of Sciences Committee on Geodynamics and Seismology National Academy of Sciences
2017 - Present Council Member International Centre for Theoretical Physics MSc Program in Sub-Saharan Africa Advisory Board
2017 - 2019 Distinguished Lecturer NSF GeoPRISMS Program
2013 - 2019 Editor-in-Chief Basin Research
2005 - 2009 Editor-in-Chief Geophysical Journal International

STATEMENT

STATEMENT

I am a structural seismologist/geodynamicist with focus on magmatism and its implications for hazards, as well as the role of fluids in fault slip behavior in extensional basins.  About half of my professional career was in the UK where I had the opportunity to serve on committees, thesis juries, and projects in many European countries. Those strong links continue today.  I have also had the privilege of working with seismologists and geodesists in Africa, S America, the US, and New Zealand on active deformation studies and capacity-building. 

My motivation to be a candidate for the IRIS Board of Directors stems in part from my international experiences and commitment to community building, data sharing, and hazard mitigation through research and education.  It is also motivated by the desire to help the community increase computational and quantitative skills for geophysics undergrads and graduates through strong partnerships with other groups, and through cohort-building.   I am a strong advocate of inclusion and transparency in science, both of which are needed as we make concerted efforts to broaden the participation of Blacks, Hispanics, and under-represented groups in geosciences.  Two years as a visiting lecturer to universities across the US were as much a listening tour for me.  With ~40% of STEM students attending community colleges for their first two years, and in the absence of geoscience programs at HBCUs, IRIS and the community need to look beyond REU and field camp programs to increase diversity in geophysics, and to consider a broad range of activities.   

As a geophysicist who utilizes both the expertise and equipment of PASSCAL and UNAVCO, and as an active participant in CIG, I bring breadth of experience and appreciation of the synergies to be enhanced over the next few years as the SAGE/GAGE merger evolves.  I offer knowledge and connections made over the past 6 years as a member of the NAS Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics (formerly Seismology and Geodynamics) to forward planning, outreach and education.