Daniel Trugman, an assistant professor at the Nevada Seismological Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been honored with the 2023 Charles F. Richter Early Career Award for his scientific productivity, contributions to open-source community software, outreach and teaching.
“I am incredibly honored to have received this award; I wouldn’t be here without the support and encouragement from the SSA community,” Trugman said.
Trugman’s research focuses on developing and applying new techniques to analyze large seismic datasets to better understand earthquake rupture processes and how those processes relate to earthquake hazard. Among the topics he has examined in depth are earthquake source properties (including how they differ in induced versus natural earthquakes), earthquake early warning methodologies, and earthquake nucleation and triggering processes.
His work in big data, machine learning and physical modeling have led to significant contributions in multiple aspects of observational seismology, said University of Nevada, Reno Foundation Professor of Geology and Seismology Steven G. Wesnousky, in nominating Trugman for the award.
“Seismology is an increasingly data-rich science,” Wesnousky said. “Daniel’s research has been creative and integral to leveraging emerging opportunities in data science to better understand earthquake physics and earthquake ground motion.”
Trugman is the lead developer of GrowClust, a publicly available software package to optimize the relative locations of earthquake hypocenters. This new method for relocating earthquakes has become popular in the seismological community due to its efficiency and user-friendly interface.
In their commendations of Trugman, several colleagues noted Trugman’s dedication to outreach and communication, specifically his efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of geophysics.
As the Richard P. Feynman Distinguished Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2018 to 2020, he traveled the state of New Mexico on behalf of the lab’s Employee Scholarship Fund, visiting high schools to encourage the pursuit of college degrees and advising scholarship winners on internship opportunities. As an assistant professor at the University of Texas, Austin from 2020 to 2022, Trugman was a postdoc mentor and taught summer classes focused on developing scientific computing skills that enabled new research experience opportunities for students in Texas and at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
“Daniel’s enthusiasm and passion for science really shines through and we at UNR are most excited to have him here for his teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists,” Wesnousky said.
Trugman received his 2013 B.S. in geophysics at Stanford University and a 2015 M.S. and a 2017 Ph.D. in Earth sciences from the University of California, San Diego.