William L. Ellsworth

Bill Ellsworth is a seismologist interested in problems of seismicity, seismotectonics, probabilistic earthquake forecasting, and earthquake source processes. After graduating with a B.S. in Physics and M.S. in geophysics from Stanford University in 1971 he joined the earthquake research group at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, which has been his professional home for the past 40 years. In 1974 he travelled east to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his PhD in geophysics in 1977. Bill's research focuses on questions of fault structure and earthquake source processes over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of his career, he has balanced his personal research with community service that has expanded opportunities and resources for seismology in the U.S. and around the world. He was a founder of the PASSCAL Program of IRIS, co-principal investigator of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD) component of EarthScope, and currently serves on the steering committee of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) and the National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council. Bill is a past President of the Seismological Society of America, a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and recipient of the Distinguished Service Award of the Department of the Interior.