Campus ceremonies honoring her achievements will be held in the fall.
In approving Professor Dengler’s selection, President Rollin Richmond spotlighted her Redwood Coast and national reputation for saving lives across the globe. “HSU is indeed fortunate to have Dr. Dengler as a distinguished member of our faculty and our students are always eager to study with such an eminent scholar and field expert,” he said.
Dr. Dengler has been a member of illustrious international post-tsunami survey teams, including Crescent City (2006), Indonesia (2005), Southern Peru (2001) and Papua New Guinea (1998).
Troy Nicolini, a professional colleague at the Eureka office of the National Weather Service who authored a letter of recommendation for the award, wrote, “Lori has spent many years developing and compiling a geologic and historic record of tsunamis that have occurred in northwestern California,” synthesizing a wealth of knowledge to serve “as the scholarly bible for all the tsunami hazard mitigation efforts in the region.”
Nicolini added: “Her tsunami inundation maps, in particular, have become the default reference in the region. At any meeting where the tsunami threat is being discussed, you will invariably hear someone ask, ‘What does Lori’s map say?’”
Director of the Humboldt Earthquake Education Center since 1986, Professor Dengler joined HSU in 1979. She is the featured tsunami expert on NOVA’s “Wave That Shook the World” web site and a top leader of Redwood Coast initiatives to improve earthquake and tsunami preparedness. The University’s Department of Geology sits astride the Cascadia subduction zone, which the faculty uses as a natural laboratory for student field research and exercises.
A member of the team that developed the United States National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program in 1995, Dr. Dengler served as California’s scientific representative on the program’s steering committee from 1996 to 2003. She authored the program’s Strategic Implementation Plan for Mitigation Projects in 1998.
In 2007, she was the co-convener of a meeting sponsored by the National Science Foundation to examine future directions for tsunami research in the United States.
The author or co-author of more than 50 journal articles and technical papers, Professor Dengler has also written a number of publications for the general public, including three editions of the North Coast earthquake and tsunami preparedness magazine, “Living on Shaky Ground.” She is currently at work on the fourth edition, scheduled to be released in September.
Dr. Dengler was the first recipient of NOAA’s Richard Hagemeyer Tsunami Mitigation Award for her leadership and role in the Redwood Coast Tsunami Work Group and a host of related community and statewide activities.
She earned her doctorate at UC Berkeley in 1979, where she also earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees. Her research centers on earthquake intensity studies and tsunami and earthquake mitigation.
Dr. Dengler will deliver the 2008 Scholar of the Year lecture on Monday, September 29, 2008, followed by a campus dinner in her honor at a time and location to be announced.
Details are available from the Office of Research and Graduate Studies at (707) 826-5194.