From January 2 through 13 the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria in Valparaíso will host an international seminar; The Science Behind Predicting and Understanding Tsunamis, Storm Surges and Tidal Phenomena.
The international conference is organized by Boston University’s Pan-American Advanced Studies Unit (PASI), and sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy.
“Chile is the perfect host to an event that aims at creating ties of collaboration across the Americas among scientists that work in understanding tsunami propagation and the hazards caused by flooding,” Professor Lorena Barba of Boston University and the main organizer of PASI told This is Chile.
Eight prestigious scientists will provide instruction and 25 scholars and scientists from the United States, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Argentina will participate.
The two weeks will see lectures, tutorials, and hands-on sessions. Themes to be covered include mathematical models used to analyze wave propagation, the inundation of coastal areas, atmospheric forcing and propagation of storms, and tactics of computer simulation.
Two illustrious Chilean scientists will provide keynotes speeches for the event; Prof. Sergio Barrientos, Scientific Director of the Seismological Service of the Universidad de Chile and Rodrigo Cienfuegos, from the Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering Department at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Designed for researchers, academic faculty, and Ph.D students, the PASI will specialize in high-performance computing or HPC.
Over the past few years, devastating storm surges have gripped communities internationally, including: the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the tsunamis of Chile (2010) and Tohoku, Japan (2011), as well as Hurricane Sandy (2012). In light of these increasingly frequent events, PASI’s organizers hope that the two-week seminar will inspire cross-cultural collaboration and more confidence in specialized mapping techniques.
“The challenges of programming for these massively parallel processors are daunting, but the rewards considerable,” PASI explained online. “On the face of this challenge, international collaboration and advanced training of young scientists are the two most effective tools for success.”
For more information about PASI visit their website.