Nominating Committee

The Nominating Committee is appointed by the Executive Committee. They are charged to present a slate of candidates for each committee such that each committee is representative of the constituency.

Chair: Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, UCLA
Frederik Simons, Princeton University
Jolante van Wijk, New Mexico Tech

Executive Committee

Vote for 2.

Bruce Buffett, University of California, Berkeley
My engagement with CIG started with the initial planning meeting, and I have served on various committees over the years. I am a former member of the Science Steering and Executive Committees, and was part of the proposal writing team for CIG-II. I have also been a member of the Dynamo Working Group for several years. The original goals of CIG were to make reliable, open-source software available to researchers and to provide a framework for integrating software packages. Along the way CIG has accomplished much more. It has attracted talented researchers with diverse expertise and interests to improve scientific software, and to serve as a hub for distributing these new tools to the broader community. CIG has also played an important role in training young researchers and in fostering community activities, such as benchmarking efforts and other projects undertaken by the Working Groups. My willingness to put my name forward for your consideration is a reflection of my deep support for CIG at a time of transition.

Claire Currie, University of Alberta [link]
My research in computational geodynamics primarily focuses on problems related to lithosphere dynamics, subduction, and continental evolution. Over the last ~8 years, I have been involved in various aspects of CIG as a member of the Executive Committee (2013-2015; 2016-2019), the Long-Term Tectonics working group, the Writing Committee for the CIG-III NSF Proposal, and organizing committees for several CIG meetings, including two joint meetings between CIG and the Canadian Geophysical Union (2014, 2018). I am just completing my term on the Executive Committee, and I am standing for re-election in order to provide continuity for the transition from CIG-III to CIG-IV. As someone based outside the United States, I see my role as providing guidance during this important time for CIG. I would also work to further strengthen international collaborations and education/outreach efforts.

Eric Hetland, University of Michigan [link]
CIG serves a unique role in facilitating the use of computation in a broad range of Earth science research. I have been involved in the CIG since its inception, as a participant in the CIG sponsored Short-Term Crustal Deformation Modelling workshops, as a member of the planning committee for those workshops since 2014, and as a user of the CIG supported modeling packages PyLith and RELAX. My research focuses on interseismic strain accumulation on active faults. I have worked on all phases of interseismic deformation including interseismic strain-accumulation, transient postseismic deformation, and coseismic deformation, of both continental faults and subduction megathrusts. I would be honored to serve on the Executive Committee of CIG if elected, and will represent the viewpoint from the short-term crustal dynamics community as CIG enters into its next phase.

Peter van Keken, Carnegie Science DTM [link]

As CIG enters a critical phase of renewal and change I am happy to stand in election for the EC. I have been involved with CIG since before its inception and participated in the Science Steering Committee, writing of the proposal for CIG-II, organization of multiple meetings, and the review of CIG-II. I am proud of what this community effort has been able to achieve and look forward to aiding its long-term success.

Science Steering Committee

Vote for 2.

Sylvain Barbot, University of Southern California [link]
I study crustal and lithosphere dynamics within the time scales of the seismic cycle. The crustal deformation modeling meetings organized by the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics have been key to galvanize a large community of scientists involved in numerical modeling. I have developed and contributed the software RELAX to help model the transient deformation that follows large earthquakes. This year, I was one of three CIG Speakers. I am eager to contribute to the continuous success of CIG and to help maintain the scientific relevance of its future endeavors.

Clint Conrad, University of Oslo [link]

I have worked on a variety of geosystems, mostly related to mantle dynamics, and have thus been a user of CIG resources since CIG's onset. I have been marginally involved in a few development efforts (with Citcom and more recently ASPECT), a member of the Mantle Convection Working Group, and the CIG Nominating Committee. In the process, I have gained an overview of CIG’s activities, and ideas about the most fruitful ways that CIG codes are used within the geodynamics community. I am strongly supportive of the open-source philosophy behind CIG’s work, and feel that growing the community of CIG users and developers is beneficial for scientific progress. If elected to the SSC, I would look to enhance CIG’s code portfolio and the range of problems that can be addressed using CIG resources. This will be especially important in the coming years as CIG looks toward its next funding cycle.

Juliane Dannberg, University of Florida [link]

I am a geodynamicist interested in mantle convection, melt generation and magma dynamics, and I use numerical simulations to model these processes from the global to the grain scale. In my research, I contribute to the CIG community software ASPECT as one of its principal developers and maintainers. As instructor of ASPECT/CIG tutorials, and as a participant and later co-organizer of CIG hackathons, I have supported users to become contributors and developers of community software themselves.

I believe that a culture of open source community software and using best practices in software development greatly benefits computational research, and is essential for producing robust and reproducible results. I have seen the success of these practices both in the development of of ASPECT and in the CIG community as a whole. If elected I would work to continue and extend CIG’s activities in building software communities, and to promote and facilitate the adoption of best practices in scientific software development across the computational Earth science community.

Scott King, Virginia Tech [link]

I have used and developed finite element models of convection for ~30 years, starting with ConMan (2D Cartesian). My group used CitcomS and ASPECT and we have been involved in benchmarking and developing both (at a modest level, others have done the heavy lifting). I was a member and Chair of the EC from 2013-2015. During that time we wrote the renewal for CIG-III. I am very interested in education, especially pursuing ways to teach state of the art (and even in some cases classical) numerical approaches for Geodynamics, as well as, lessons learned from the past. I’m concerned and a bit puzzled that while there have been a number of advances in computational techniques over the past 10+ years, the model grids for 3D spherical convection often used to day have not increased in resolution compared with those used in the late 2000’s. I would like to help advance this. As much of my work has shifted to planetary science, I interact with the planetary geodynamics community almost more than the terrestrial community these days and I believe both communities can benefit from more cross communication. I am happy roll up my sleeve and work with the SSC to advance CIG’s goals and to help develop a solid plan for CIG-IV moving forward.