SZNet is actively building momentum across its core initiatives, including the development of the US & Chile exchange program, coordination of the interdisciplinary field trip taking place in Mount Hood, and continued support for strengthening international collaboration and expanding opportunities for researchers across the SZNet network.

International Pilot Projects

2026 Mt Hood Pilot Project

The Mt. Hood pilot field project will take place July 21–29 and will bring together a cohort of 30 participants across disciplines and career stages to investigate interacting geohazards in the Mt. Hood volcanic region.

Mt. Hood, one of the most hazardous volcanoes in the continental United States, provides a natural laboratory for interdisciplinary geohazard research. The field project will focus on the coupled roles of volcanism, landslides and debris flows, crustal faulting, and sediment dynamics, using a combination of field observations and drone-based surveys. Participants will also engage in synthesis activities, field collaboration discussions, and contribute to the development and testing of the StraboSpot mapping platform.

Learn more | 2026 Mt Hood Pilot Project

2027 Chile Pilot Project

The field trip leaders have completed a scouting trip for the Chile pilot project, which will take place in 2027. Applications to participate in the program will open this summer - stay tuned for more details.

This trip aims to investigate the geodynamic processes and surface hazards associated with the latitudinal transition from flat-slab subduction (27°–33°S) to normal subduction south of 33°S in the Southern Central Andes. Beginning in Uspallata, Argentina and continuing along the Chilean coastal region, with multiple stops along the way, the excursion will bring together U.S. and international scientists across career stages, fostering cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of subduction systems.

Learn more | 2027 Chile Pilot Project

US & Chile Exchange Program

The 2026 US & Chile Exchange is ongoing, bringing together Early Career Researchers engaged in collaborative research across partner institutions in the United States and Chile. Additional updates and highlights from participants will be shared as the cohort completes their exchanges.

Our first participant to complete the exchange recently returned from Chile. Luke Gezovich, a recent PhD graduate from the Colorado School of Mines, worked with Dr. Tania Villaseñor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Luke’s research uses remote sensing techniques to study fluvial and deltaic systems on Earth and Mars, with a particular focus on fluvial environments in subduction-zone settings, including Colombia, Indonesia, and Chile, to better understand their evolution, dynamics, and associated natural hazards. You can read more about Luke’s research project and exchange experience below.

Learn more | Meet the 2026 Cohort

Read more | Reflecting on three years of the SZNet Chile & US Exchange Program, former participant Javier Ojeda shares his perspectives on how early-career international collaboration is shaping subduction zone science.

Looking ahead, the 2027 edition of the exchange will open for participant applications on July 1. Scientists interested in hosting an exchange participant may also register their interest through July 1. We expect to support up to six participants in the 2027 cohort.

About Luke’s research project

The Maipo River in central Chile is the primary source of freshwater for the Santiago metropolitan region and surrounding communities, supporting agriculture, industry, and nearly one-third of Chile’s population. However, long-term changes in climate and precipitation patterns, combined with a persistent megadrought since 2010, have placed increasing pressure on water resource availability in the region.

To better study the Maipo river system, I traveled to Santiago, Chile, to work with Dr. Tania Villaseñor at Universidad Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile from January-February 2026. My research project focused on quantifying, describing, and understanding both short- and long-term morphological changes in the Maipo River. To do this, we developed a random forest machine learning classifier using Google Earth Engine to map land cover along the river. We used seasonally averaged Landsat 5–9 composite imagery, generated for Austral summer, fall, winter, and spring, and classified land cover within the active river corridor into three categories: river, vegetation, and sediment. 

In parallel, we conducted a series of field campaigns along the river, spanning confined upper-basin reaches in the Andes, urbanized sections through the Santiago metropolitan area, and downstream reaches supporting agricultural communities. These field observations provided ground truth data for interpreting remote sensing results and helped link observed land cover changes to local geomorphic and human drivers. Fieldwork was also coordinated with a complementary project investigating microplastic distributions in Maipo River sediments. We conducted a 2 day-long expedition to Universidad Glacier in the basin to the South to take sediment, temperature, and water samples from the largest glacier in central Chile.

The results of our work show that the Maipo River has experienced distinct seasonal and long-term land cover changes across different segments of the river corridor. Across the system, river area has decreased significantly relative to both sediment and vegetation cover. However, some reaches show pronounced increases in either sediment or vegetation, likely reflecting spatially variable controls such as reduced flow conditions associated with prolonged drought, channel adjustment, or localized human influences such as mining. The results of this work will help improve our understanding of how large river systems in mountainous subduction zones respond to climate variability and anthropogenic disturbance. After returning to the U.S., this work was presented at the SZ4D 2026 Community Meeting in Long Beach, California. We plan to publish the results of this work in the near future.

by Javier Alejandro Ojeda Vargas Postdoctoral Researcher, Universidad de Concepción Exchange Program Alum (1st edition) Evaluation Committee Member for the 2nd through the 4th edition)

Three years ago, we asked a simple question: what would happen if we gave early-career subduction zone scientists the time, funding, and freedom to work side by side across borders? The answer, as it turns out, is extraordinary.

This June, we're pausing to reflect on what the SZNet Chile & US Exchange Program has built, and to launch its fourth and final edition.

Three Years in Numbers

Since 2024, the program has funded 16 researchers — 8 based in the United States and 8 based in Chile — sending each of them on a month-long independent research exchange at a partner institution in the other country. Along the way, we've woven together a network spanning more than 20 institutions, creating new opportunities and partnerships led by graduate students and early-career scientists. Those numbers tell part of the story. But the real measure of the program lies in the research it unlocked.

What Three Years of Exchange Looks Like in Practice

The 2024 cohort set the tone for everything that followed. Javier Ojeda traveled from Universidad de Chile to Roland Bürgmann's Active Tectonics Lab at UC Berkeley to study aseismic deformation along the Chilean margin, leaving with new collaborators and a joint presentation at the Slow-to-Fast Earthquake Workshop in Santiago. Leoncio Cabrera spent three and a half weeks at MIT with William Frank's group building a high-resolution seismic catalog, an exchange so generative that by January, Frank was making the trip to Chile to keep the work going. And Flavia Rojas Guzmán came to The Ohio State University to learn boundary element modeling with Ashley Griffith, a technique she put directly to work to understand how fault intersections drive magma migration in the Andes, contributing to a paper published in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research. Nate Klema, now an assistant professor at Fort Lewis College, traveled to Chilean Patagonia to work with teams at Pontificia Universidad Católica studying volcanic landscape evolution at the remote Melimoyu Reserve (Chilean Patagonia), to investigate the coupling between glacial, fluvial, and volcanic processes. Stephanie McNamara led her first independent field campaign at a coastal dunefield in Ritoque (Chile), setting up dune-obstacle experiments with collaborators at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez that are still being monitored today, and returned with a deepened understanding of how subduction zone geohazards intersect with the communities living alongside them. In 2025, Camila Monge used InSAR at Cornell to identify previously unrecognized landslide deformation near the Diamante Caldera. Lucas Crisosto arrived at the University of Washington at the very start of his PhD and left with a clearer research direction and new collaborators in both marine geophysics and computational modeling. Micaela Villarroel completed critical electron microprobe analyses at the University of Nevada, Reno, that will anchor her doctoral dissertation on hydrothermal systems in the Southern Andes. And Karissa Vermillion was conducting fieldwork in the Atacama Desert when a 6.4 earthquake struck, a reminder, if one were needed, that this is exactly the kind of science that matters.

Now in 2026, a third cohort is underway, with six more researchers crossing the equator to continue this tradition — from California, Colorado, Indiana, Massachusetts, and Washington to Antofagasta, Concepción, Talca, and Santiago, deploying fiber-optic systems, studying geothermal fluids, mapping tsunami impacts, and building the collaborations that will define the next decade of subduction zone science.

The Fourth and Final Edition

This year also brings an important milestone: applications for the 2027 edition — the fourth and final cohort of this program — will open on July 1.

That makes this moment both a celebration and a call to action. If you are a graduate student or early-career scientist based in the US or Chile, within 3 years of your last degree and working on subduction-zone geohazards, this is your last opportunity to participate.

The program funds up to 31 days of travel, lodging, and meals to connect you with a research partner in another country. 

Host registration is open now through July 1. Participant applications open July 1 and close October 1.

Learn more about the program and application process: SZNet Chile & US Exchange Program

Read the Exchange Stories

The best way to understand what this program actually delivers is to hear it directly from the people who lived it. Visit our Exchange Stories page to read firsthand accounts from participants across all three cohorts, their research, their reflections, and what the experience meant for their careers.

Read participant experiences and exchange stories: Exchange Summaries & Stories

None of this would exist without the National Science Foundation's AccelNet program (award 2301732), the host institutions, the advisors who encouraged their students to apply, and the researchers who said yes to an unfamiliar lab in an unfamiliar country and came back with data, publications, collaborations, and friendships they couldn't have anticipated. Kudos to you!

The fourth edition awaits.