“Through a combination of source studies and ground motion prediction research, [Baltay] has carved a niche for herself that is unique in seismology for her generation,” said Gregory Beroza, the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University and Baltay’s Ph.D. advisor, noting that her work to date has made “tangible contributions to increasing seismic safety.”
Annemarie Baltay’s research has focused on various methods for estimating earthquake source parameters — in particular, radiated seismic energy and stress drop — and how they control the amplitudes of strong ground motion as functions of ground-motion frequency and earthquake magnitude. In her thesis work, she analyzed data from recent great earthquakes including the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatra and 2011 magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-oki events.
As part of a “new wave” of interest in earthquake source parameters, Baltay has made valuable contributions to the Next Generation of Attenuation (NGA) engineering seismology ground motion models and the Extreme Ground Motion (ExGM) project, her colleagues noted in their support for her Richter award.
Baltay’s ability to bridge the gap between the seismological evidence underlying ground motion prediction equations and the application and refinement of those equations required for engineering applications, through her work with the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center, among others, was also praised by her colleagues.
Baltay received her undergraduate degree in applied mathematics with a concentration in geophysics in 2005 from Yale University, and her master’s and Ph.D. in geophysics from Stanford University in 2009 and 2011, respectively. She served as a Mendenhall Postdoctoral Fellow at USGS Menlo Park from 2013 to 2015.