I’m Shelley Chestler, a PhD student at the University of Washington studying earthquakes that happen so slowly you can’t feel them. I was a geology major in college and decided to study earthquakes in graduate school after living through the February, 2011 Christchurch earthquake while studying abroad in New Zealand. You can read more about my experience during the Christchurch earthquake in my first blog post.
As a resident of the Pacific Northwest, I think it is really important to communicate about earthquake hazards. I started this blog to both explain the science behind earthquakes and to give you tools (and inspiration) get prepared. I also occasionally write blog posts for the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, the government organization that monitors earthquake activity in Oregon and Washington.
In addition to writing and research, I am involved with the University of Washington’s Engage program, a program that gives graduate students the rare opportunity to learn to communicate their research in a way that is engaging, informative, and understandable to all audiences. The Engage program taught me a lot of the tools I now use to write good posts. In collaboration with Town Hall Seattle the Engage program puts on the UW Science Now speaker series each spring, where Engage students get the opportunity to share their research with the community. You can check out the video of my Town Hall talk here.
Shaken, not stirred 