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Citation by Jeff Rubin
Yumei Wang has dedicated most of her professional career to making communities safer and more resilient
through research, public policy, public outreach, and professional service.
Yumei has been a continual presence in the Pacific Northwest, pushing the Cascadia Subduction Zone and
other seismic hazards into public consciousness – and policy – for more than 25 years, including as a
convener for the 2000 Penrose Conference on the Great Cascadia Earthquake Tricentennial. She has served
as a geologist, geotechnical engineer, and was a Resilience Engineer with Oregon’s Department of Geology
and Mineral Industries; she’s now Affiliate Faculty and Senior Advisor on Infrastructure Resilience and
Risk at Portland State University. Her work on lifelines, hospitals, and other interdependent
infrastructure has identified critical vulnerabilities and provided paths forward. She has filled
leadership roles in two FEMA regional earthquake consortia, served on a range of professional and
technical committees, and has performed several post-earthquake reconnaissance missions. Her
participation on the National Academies Committee on State of the Art and Practice in Earthquake Induced
Soil Liquefaction Assessment helped address a major hazard in the US and abroad.
Her technical contributions are equaled – and enhanced – by her engagement with policymakers, emergency
managers (including me) and responders, and critical infrastructure owners and operators. She continues
to engage the public as well, from broadcast media to op-eds, and formal presentations to science pubs.
She currently serves on national and state ShakeAlert outreach committees, helping bring a long-awaited
resource to the Pacific Northwest. From her days as an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow, through
chairing Oregon’s Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission, and helping steer the Oregon Resilience
Plan to completion, she has become a trusted partner in policy development.
Yumei is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, past Chair of their Council on Disaster
Risk Management and Technical Council on Lifeline Earthquake Engineering, and received their LeVal Lund
Award for Practicing Lifeline Risk Reduction. She also has received the Earthquake Engineering Research
Institute’s Alfred E. Alquist Special Recognition Medal, for substantial contributions to seismic safety
and earthquake risk reduction, and Engineer of the Year from the Professional Engineers of Oregon.
Thanks to Yumei, everyone who steps into Earthquake Country is safer.
Response by Yumei Wang
Thank you to the GSA awards committee for this wonderful honor and to Jeff Rubin for his very gracious
nomination.
An ancient Chinese proverb advises us, “when you drink water, remember the source”. Receiving the GSA
public service award feels like a deep and nourishing drink of water on the path of my career, and I
would like to remember and recognize the abundant source of this award.
Over the years—in my work at the interface of science, public policy, and public safety—I have had the
privilege and great fortune to work with so many talented and dedicated people. This has included
colleagues in science and engineering, elected officials and policy makers, representatives from
industry and concerned members of the general public. Together—with persistence and patience—we have
pursued a vision of communities that are more resilient and safer from geologic disasters. This award is
equally in recognition of the efforts of so many other people.
I would like to recognize especially several gifted geoscientists who have played important roles along
the path of my career:
• Mr. Lloyd Cluff, preeminent earthquake geologist, who hired me as a geotechnical engineer fresh out
of graduate school before the 1989 Loma Prieta, California earthquake. That earthquake, and Lloyd’s
influence and guidance, helped to start me on a career in disaster resilience.
• Dr. Don Hull, former Oregon State Geologist, for teaching me that politics and media play an
important role in improving the public’s safety. Over the course of my 26 years at the Oregon Department
of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI), Dr. Hull and other colleagues at DOGAMI shared their
expertise and support.
• Dr. Scott Burns, Portland State University geologist, for his enthusiasm in teaching me about the
geology and geomorphology in the Cascadia region.
• Dr. Brian Atwater, U.S. Geological Survey geologist, for warmly welcoming me into the community of
scientists studying the Cascadia subduction zone.
• Dr. Chris Goldfinger, Oregon State University geologist, for sharing his research activities and
findings along the Cascadia margin.
• Dr. Jeff Rubin, emergency planner and geologist, for his belief and confidence in my demanding and
idealist vision for how to best create disaster resilience.
I began working on hazards related to the Cascadia subduction zone at a time when there was a profound
lack of awareness and understanding of the enormous societal risks posed by a great Cascadia earthquake.
Since then, I have worked with some success to heighten public awareness of the importance of preparing
for these disasters. I have also worked on the development of policies and programs to address these
risks by improving the safety of schools, emergency response facilities, and essential lifelines related
to energy, water, transportation and communication systems.
Despite our progress—with successful programs to identify and fix dangerous school buildings, emergency
response facilities, and lifeline systems—we have only begun to address this critically important
problem. We continue to build in areas susceptible to great destructive geologic forces, such as on
flood plains with liquefiable soils, mountainsides with unstable slopes, and coastal areas at risk of
tsunami inundation. As society increases its reliance on modern lifeline services that have been built
on older and vulnerable infrastructure systems, we are setting ourselves up for continued disasters—only
bigger and more frequent. There is a sobering amount of work ahead to lower the risk from geologic
hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides—work that should include:
• Improving building codes to require “functional recovery”, in which structures and lifeline systems
are designed to better tolerate geologic and extreme weather-related forces, and to control the damages
so they can be quickly mitigated.
• Retrofitting existing critical facilities that serve as community safety nets, such as schools, fire
stations and hospitals, so they will be available to perform their duties after major disasters.
• Increasing safety standards for facilities containing hazardous materials so that uncontrolled
releases do not cause catastrophic harm.
• Assuring that our policies and programs to improve community safety from geologic and weather hazards
are inclusive of those members of society who are disadvantaged and less able to take care of
themselves.
Again, thank you for this award in recognition of important work to increase the resilience of
communities and improve public safety from geologic hazards. I firmly believe that no geologic hazard
needs to result in a human disaster. It is within our ability to make that so. My hope is that our
collective commitment and efforts to better understand and reduce the societal risks of these hazards
will continue to grow and will leave the world a safer place for our children.