Pan-American Studies: Applying Computational Models to Real-Case Scenarios for Volcanic Hazard Assessment; University of Colima, Mexico, January 2013

This Pan-American Advanced Studies Institutes (PASI) award, jointly supported by the NSF and the Department of Energy (DOE), will take place in January 2013 at the University of Colima in Mexico. The PASI will be organized by Dr. Eliza S. Calder (SUNY Buffalo), aided by other scientists from her institution, as well as scientists from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico at Queretaro, Mexico, the University of the West Indies, Trinidad, and the Universidad de Colima in Mexico. The institute will advance the understanding of the range of methodologies and procedures currently available for undertaking rigorous hazard assessments. It will combine lecture-based, field and hands-on computational modeling sessions, which will step through the complete process, from collection of rudimentary information about the volcano?s past activity to providing a hazard assessment based on computational modeling using a suite of up-to-date simulation tools. The PASI will bring together 22 instructors who are international experts covering five major discipline groups (geoscience, computational engineering, mathematics, and geography), and who also include senior scientists or directors of six international government agencies. This PASI will introduce students to many important techniques in the subjects above. In addition to mentoring and exposing junior scientists to state-of-the-art methods in modeling, it will foster international collaboration among researchers from the US and the Americas. Junior researchers will participate in advanced workshops taking advantage of a major cyber-infrastructure resource, which provides an assortment of simulation tools and tutorials in an accessible environment, as well as an organizational and storage structure for data and dissemination of the results.