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Lori Dengler, Geology Professor at Humboldt State University, is the winner of the 2009 Alfred E. Alquist Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Earthquake Safety  At the Awards Luncheon during the Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, EERI member Lori Dengler, Professor in the Department of Geology at Humboldt State University, received the 2009 Alfred E. Alquist Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Earthquake Safety given by the Earthquake Safety Foundation. Lori was recognized for her outstanding scholarship, major contributions to the development of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, and longstanding advocacy of earthquake and tsunami preparedness. Her efforts have made California a safer and more resilient state.
Lori received a Ph.D. in Geophysics in 1979 from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been on the geology faculty at Humboldt State University for 29 years. She was selected by the university as Scholar of the Year for 2008. She has authored many publications in the areas of the historic seismicity of California's north coast, earthquake intensity studies, the application of seismic refraction to surficial processes, and earthquake and tsunami hazard mitigation. An international authority on tsunamis, she has served on post-tsunami survey teams including investigations of Crescent City (2006), Indonesia (2005), Southern Peru (2001) and Papua New Guinea (1998). Lori was a member of the team that developed the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program in 1995. She authored the program's Strategic Implementation Plan for Mitigation Projects in 1998. In 2006, she was selected as a panelist to provide guidance regarding the program’s governance and strategic objectives for the ensuing five years. In 2007, she was co-convener of a National Science Foundation panel charged with examining current tsunami studies and recommending future directions of tsunami research in the United States. Lori was the first recipient of NOAA's Richard Hagemeyer Tsunami Mitigation Award for her leadership role in the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group (RCTWG) and her significant contributions to both tsunami science and tsunami public education. As founder and Director of the Humboldt Earthquake Education Center, Lori has served California's coastal communities as an enthusiastic advocate for earthquake and tsunami public education. She is the principal author of "Living on Shaky Ground," an illustrated earthquake and tsunami survival guide tailored to California's north coast but applicable statewide. In her capacity as scientific advisor to the RCTWG, she collaborated with NOAA's National Weather Service, the California Emergency Management Agency (CalEMA), county emergency management agencies, and other local organizations to conduct California's first "live code" tsunami warning test in March 2008 designed to insure that the Emergency Alert System will function as intended when a tsunami warning is issued. She was an incorporating member of the Board of Directors of the Cascadia Region Earthquake Working Group, and served on the Tsunami Safety Subcommittee of the California Seismic Safety Commission. She received the California Emergency Services Association (CESA) Gold Award for contributions to emergency services in the public sector. On behalf of the RCTWG, she received the 2009 WSSPC Award in Excellence in the category of Innovation.
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