Nick Rousseau

Nick Rousseau began his long road with SCEC in 2004 when he was first accepted into the Undergraduate Studies of Earthquake Information Technology (UseIT,) program, based at USC. At such an early stage of his undergraduate work in Geology, this was his first introspection into how research in the geosciences was implemented through the use of computer technology. During this exposure, he learned how to build a bridge between media and science in order to convey the importance of understanding earthquake hazards to the general public. This internship had progressively led him into a second internship in the summer of 2005, where he continued as an earthquake science movie-maker. In the summer of 2006, Nick acquired a third SCEC internship with the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), which was specifically tailored to geology majors whose primary focus was on field research. Nick assisted a team of SCEC scientists in the excavation of paleoseismic trenches to study the rupture history of the San Andreas fault in the Carrizo Plain. Additionally, the SURE program exposed Nick to the real-world methods used in scientific interpretation and had broadened his knowledge in the field of geology. Lastly, in the summer of 2007, Nick landed a final SURE internship with SCEC at Cal State University Northridge (CSUN) in the summer of 2007. Under Dr. Doug Yule, he was involved on a project developing digitized fault maps for the Geological Survey of Pakistan using GIS-based software while collaborating simultaneously with other interns to constrain fault off-set in the Biskra Palms area of the Southern San Andrea fault. Nick’s involvement with SCEC spanned almost the entirety of his undergraduate career. After graduating at Cal State University Northridge in the spring of 2010, he began his 12 month-long volunteer work at the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena, California, and was elected to produce a successful media documentary proposed by Ken Hudnut of the USGS of a scientific collaboration called the Southern San Andreas Fault Evaluation (SoSAFE) project. It was this volunteer work that led him to work as a supervisor of the UseIT summer program mentoring twenty undergrads under Dr. Bob de Groot in 2011 and 2012. Due to the exposure of many SCEC scientists, the influence of other students, and his internship history with SCEC, Nick is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Geology at CSUN.