I am writing this just as the fall quarter gets into full swing here at UC Santa Cruz. The wildlife has wandered back into the woods on our forested campus and the students are back with their enthusiasm and promise. As I enter the classroom again, I remember that SZ4D is for them. SZ4D aims to build a multihazard science, where scientists can use knowledge seamlessly across the system, and to build the instrumentation necessary to successfully realize these goals.  It is a gift to the future of our science. 

In preparation for the new academic year, the leadership of the SZ4D committees met in mid-September in Santa Cruz to map out the year. We identified four major priorities for 2024-2025: (1) Submit the MulitArray instrumentation proposal to the MSRI II call, which is anticipated to be released by NSF in spring 2025, (2) Launch an SZ4D Center, should it be funded. (Like all respondents to the Geohazards Center Call, we are still awaiting news from NSF), (3) Engage and support the scientific community both virtually and in-person and (4) Identify and catalyze key missing pieces of the SZ4D Implementation Plan. All of these goals are ambitious and potentially open-ended, so much of our meeting focused on creating a staged plan that effectively utilized the expertise of the SZ4D committees while being cognizant of the committee members’ responsibilities as scientists to preserve their time to do the science. The resulting priority matrix will be a key tool to ensure coordination and progress. 

An important outcome of the leadership meeting was a clear convergence across disciplines. The working groups that originally formed as separate committees to address earthquake, volcanic and landscape issues are finding so many commonalities that their distinct agendas have merged. This is a testament to the success of the multihazards vision. Therefore, starting this year the FEC, MDE and LS Working Groups will hold many of their meetings as joint committees to further foster and advance our movement towards a multihazards science.

We also had our first in-person meeting of IMPACTS, our Community of Practice for co-curricular staff at Minority Serving Institutions associated with SZ4D. The deep, research-informed conversations on how to move forward in supporting minoritized students were energizing and are helping define all of our future. Stay tuned for more updates in the next Newsletter.

SZNet, our international component, is moving forward at full speed this year. GeoArray just completed an amazing field trip in Cascadia.  The Chile-US exchange program is entering its 2nd iteration.  In both cases applicants outnumbered available slots by an order of magnitude. We are excited by this community response and look forward to creating more opportunities in the future. Sign up this fall for the SZNet legacy data virtual workshop, the Ocean Floor Technology in-person workshop in January 2025 in Santiago and the SZNet Chile Field trip, also in January 2025. 

And there’s more! SZ4Grads is starting their international, bilingual webinar series this Wednesday. SZ4D will be hosting a virtual townhall on the MultiArray on Oct. 14 and another on other SZ4D activities in early November as we gear up for AGU.

I look forward to seeing you all at AGU in Washington, DC. As you make your travel plans, please make room for the SZ4D icebreaker Sunday evening. The popular SZ4D headquarters meeting space will return this year. Sign ups will be available for meeting space to help catalyze your workshops, collaborations and discoveries. 

Take care and see you soon,