Judith Chester is an Associate Professor of Geology in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Texas A&M University. Her primary research focus is understanding the composition, structure and mechanics of crustal fault zones at all scales and determining what geologic data can tell us about the earthquake source. She also is involved in studies of creep compaction in reservoir rocks and folding and fracture in layered rock. Dr. Chester currently is serving as the leader of the Fault and Rupture Mechanics Interdisciplinary Focus Group of the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). Her EarthScope work is part of the ongoing effort to understand the physical and chemical processes controlling faulting and earthquake generation along the San Andreas Fault and therefore relies heavily on data provided by the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD).

Matt Fouch is Associate Professor of Geophysics in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. His primary research interests are in imaging Earth's interior using seismology. Dr. Fouch’s current work focuses on the tectonics of western North America as revealed by data from seismic arrays, most notably EarthScope's USArray and the High Lava Plains seismic experiment. He is actively involved in efforts to bring seismic data into the classroom from elementary school to college levels, and is a frequent speaker at public science lectures and teacher workshops. Dr. Fouch recently received the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), in part for his work involving EarthScope.

After receiving a BS degree in Geophysics from the California Institute of Technology, Dr. Melbourne spent two years conducting GPS studies at the Cascades Volcano Observatory of the U. S. Geological Survey. He then earned a PhD in Seismology, also from Caltech. Since 1999 Dr. Melbourne has been on the faculty at Central Washington University where he is Director of the PANGA Geodesy Laboratory. His research incorporates observations from EarthScope to investigate the deforming edge of the North American continent along the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

Dr. van der Lee received an undergraduate degree in geophysics from the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) where she operated the NARS-NL mobile seismic network. She earned a PhD from Princeton University in 1996, using seismic waveform tomography to develop some of the first images of the structure of Earth’s mantle beneath North America. After her Ph.D. defense (which was conducted in the room where Walter Matthau lectured as Einstein in the movie I.Q.) she joined the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC. There, she explored the mantle structure beneath South America and discovered striking similarities and differences with North America. Dr. van der Lee installed a portable seismic array in Zimbabwe and South Africa as part of the Kaapvaal Craton Project. During her subsequent five-year lectureship at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), she taught advanced undergraduate courses and supervised Ph.D. students. She initiated and managed the MIDSEA project in the Mediterranean region (including seismic stations on remote islands and in northern Africa), as well as the BLSP02 project in Brazil. Dr. van der Lee is currently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University, where she interprets campaign and permanent-network seismic data (including EarthScope’s USArray) to unravel the dynamics of the solid Earth.

Dr. Zandt is Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arizona. After obtaining his BS degree in Geology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his PhD in Geophysics from MIT, Dr. Zandt held research and teaching positions at the University of Utah, the State University of New York at Binghamton, and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. He joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 1997. His primary research interests are in utilizing data from passive broadband seismology deployments to understand the deep structure and tectonic evolution of orogenic systems. He has been involved in field deployments in the U. S. and Canadian Cordillera, the South American Andes, and along the North Anatolian Fault in central Turkey. He is currently working on data from these regions as well as the EarthScope USArray data to understand the role of lithospheric delamination in mountain building.