The Undergraduate Studies in Earthquake Information Technology (UseIT) Program at the Southern California Earthquake Center

Southern California Earthquake Center

The Southern California Earthquake Center , headquartered at the University of Southern California, was founded in 1991 with a mission to:* gather new information about earthquakes in Southern California;...

 (SCEC) is a NSF

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

, DOD

United States Department of Defense

The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

 and USC

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 sponsored undergraduate level research and technology development initiative founded in 2002. UseIT is a competitive program open to undergraduate students nationwide

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 who have completed at least one year of studies in engineering, mathematics, science or film. The program is currently directed by Dr. Thomas H. Jordan

Thomas H. Jordan

Thomas H Jordan is a geophysicist and current director of the Southern California Earthquake Center at The University of Southern California. He was formerly the head of the Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a member of the...

 and scientists from various SCEC

Southern California Earthquake Center

The Southern California Earthquake Center , headquartered at the University of Southern California, was founded in 1991 with a mission to:* gather new information about earthquakes in Southern California;...

 institutions nationwide. UseIT interns receive a $5,000 stipend and up to $600 in travel cost reimbursement.

Interdisciplinary Approach

The setup of the UseIT program is unique among federally funded research programs for undergraduate students in that it recruits students from a variety of disciplines such as: Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

, Biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

, Chemistry

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

, Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

, Film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, Geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

, Mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

, and Physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

. In turn, students selected for the program are expected to work together, independently from their advisors to produce meaningful research and further develop the flagship software product of SCEC

Southern California Earthquake Center

The Southern California Earthquake Center , headquartered at the University of Southern California, was founded in 1991 with a mission to:* gather new information about earthquakes in Southern California;...

, SCEC-VDO. Recurring student teams over the years have had a focus of data collection, software development, film documentary and related media, and production of videos using SCEC-VDO for public outreach and awareness. The unique array of disciplines in the program allows for a broader impact societally by increasing the amount of information available to the general public.

SCEC-VDO

The primary goal of UseIT is to add relevant features to SCEC-VDO as requested by SCEC researchers and scientists. SCEC-VDO is an open-source Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

 based earthquake visualization software package. Originally called "LA 3D," the software was renamed SCEC-VDO (Visual Display of Objects) to be both more representative of the source of the software as well as the functionality. SCEC-VDO has the ability to display faults in three dimensions, earthquake hypocenters

Hypocenter

The hypocenter refers to the site of an earthquake or a nuclear explosion...

, fault-rupture probabilities, and changes in surface events over time. SCEC-VDO is the only software available that provides three-dimensional visualizations of these geological features.

External Links

Visualizations created using SCEC-VDO

Download page for SCEC-VDO