Thomas Hillman Jordan

Thomas H. Jordan is a University Professor and the W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California. His current research is focused on system-level models of earthquake processes, earthquake forecasting, continental dynamics, full-3D waveform tomography, and seismology. He is an author of approximately 250 scientific publications, including a popular textbook (with J. Grotzinger) Understanding Earth, 8^th ed. As the director of the Southern California Earthquake Center (2002-2017), Jordan coordinated an international research program in earthquake system science that involved over 1000 scientists at more than 70 universities and research organizations. He established the international Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (2006) and the Collaboratory for Interseismic Simulation and Modeling (2015). He was elected as a member of the Council of the National Academy of Sciences (2006-2009), and has served on its Executive Committee (2007-2009) and the Governing Board of the National Research Council (2008-2011). He chaired the NRC’s Committee on Seismology (1992-1998) and NRC panels that produced two decadal reports, Living on an Active Earth: Perspectives on Earthquake Science (2003) and Basic Research Opportunities in Earth Sciences (2002). He received his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1972 and taught at Princeton University (1972-1975) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (1975-1984) before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984. He was head of MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 1988 to 1998. In 2000, he moved from MIT to USC, and in 2004, he was appointed as a USC University Professor. He has been awarded the Macelwane and Lehmann Medals of the American Geophysical Union, the President's Medal and Woollard Award of the Geological Society of America, and the 2012 Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding of the Geosciences by the American Geosciences Institute. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.