Paul Andrew Spudich Fund Helps Scientific Travel to Japan

An SSA pupil and early-career member attended a seismology-advancing convention in Kochi, Japan—an expertise made potential by donor generosity.

1 November 2025— Baoning Wu by no means met the late seismologist who impressed SSA’s latest assist program, however he is aware of his analysis properly. One of Paul Spudich’s widely-cited papers is referenced all through Wu’s PhD undertaking on earthquake high-frequency radiation. In 2019, the undertaking served as Wu’s first main oral presentation. He was too nervous to soak up a lot of the opposite talks that day, however he remembers why one presentation drew extra applause than the remainder.

“It was an ovation for Paul Spudich,” Wu says, explaining that the beloved scientist had died just some months earlier than the assembly, so his colleague Antonella Cirella offered Spudich’s last paper (on modeling floor motions of the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake) on his behalf.

Today SSA’s Paul Andrew Spudich Fund continues to honor the enormous in seismology by offering grants that assist burgeoning research in earthquake supply physics or floor movement prediction—areas Spudich made vital contributions to throughout his distinguished profession with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The fund simply enabled Wu, an early-career theoretical geophysicist, and Jeena Yun, a PhD candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, to take part within the September 2025 International Joint Workshop on Slow-to-Fast Earthquakes in Kochi, Japan. Both SSA members returned from the workshop with new connections, concepts and enthusiasm for his or her future initiatives.

Because Wu has labored on modeling sluggish earthquakes since his PhD, touring to Japan to attend this main convention for sharing slow-earthquake analysis had been on his scientific want listing for a very long time. He discovered it particularly significant to lastly meet the slow-earthquake group in particular person, together with scientists who’ve had a serious impression on his work. “My abstract was selected for an oral presentation, and I gave a talk in front of Professor Ryosuke Ando, whose work my research is based on. Professor Satoshi Ide, whose ideas inspired my research, also sat in the front row,” Wu says.

Yun was desirous to attend the workshop as a result of her latest analysis undertaking focuses on understanding how an earthquake can have an effect on the sequences of sluggish and quick earthquakes on a close-by megathrust interface. She appreciated the workshop’s steadiness of contributions from completely different subdisciplines of geosciences, together with seismology, geodesy, mineral physics and petrology, and says the expertise opened her eyes to each new initiatives and views.

“I extended my knowledge on cutting-edge research on not only slow and fast earthquakes in various subduction zones, but also their structural and geological properties,” she says, including that she additionally constructed connections with potential collaborators from Japan, China and Canada engaged on completely different elements of subduction zone earthquakes.

Both researchers say their career-advancing expertise was solely potential due to the donor-funded grant program. “Without the support of the SSA Paul Andrew Spudich Travel Grant, I would not be able to attend this workshop due to the shortage of other funding,” Yun says.

Wu feels notably grateful for the journey grant’s concentrate on theoretical analysis. “While I don’t have tenure and probably won’t have one in the foreseeable future, I often have to work on several observational or practical projects simultaneously to support myself in conducting those with more theoretical flavor,” he says. “The SSA Paul Spudich Travel Grant offered great help to me, and I feel truly grateful.”

After receiving suggestions on the workshop, Wu feels extra ready to wrap up his slow-earthquake fashions into publications. Yun has new contacts she will be able to name on for initiatives aimed toward advancing earthquake science and reducing seismic hazard.

The Paul Andrew Spudich Travel Grant program will welcome functions as soon as once more in February. “In this era of uncertain funding situations,” Yun says, “I highly encourage my peers to apply and grab this invaluable opportunity.”

To assist extra promising scientists like Wu and Yun advance the research of earthquake supply physics and floor movement prediction, please contemplate making a year-end present to the Paul Andrew Spudich Fund.