Team

UC San Diego Project Leaders

Neal Driscoll

Principal Investigator

Falko Kuester

Co-Principal Investigator

Frank Vernon

Co-Principal Investigator

DEPUTY DIRECTORS OF OPERATIONS & FIRST RESPONDER LIAISONS

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Rachael Brady

DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH

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Brian Norton

DIVISION CHIEF, SAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT

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Dean Veik

DEPUTY CHIEF, CAL FIRE SOUTHERN REGION (RETIRED)

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Zachary Wells

DEPUTY CHIEF, KERN COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT

Technical Team

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Scott Blair

UX + GRAPHIC DESIGNER / FRONT END DEVELOPER

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Jayne Bormann

DATA ENGINEER

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Adam Brust

SYSTEMS ENGINEER

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James Conley

PRINCIPAL ELECTRONICS TECHNICIAN

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John Connolly

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT TECHNICIAN

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John Driscoll

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER

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James Holmes

OPERATIONS DIRECTOR

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Nathan Hui

RESEARCH ENGINEER

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Eric Lo

ROBOTICS ENGINEER

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Scott McAvoy

DATA SYSTEMS ANALYST

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Christopher McFarland

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

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Colby Nicholson

DEVELOPMENT TECHNICIAN

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Tanner Norton

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM-GIS

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Vid Petrovic

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

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Lisa Richards

SYSTEMS ENGINEER

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Dominique Rissolo

ARCHAEOLOGIST AND TRIBAL LIAISON

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Mark Williams

SYSTEMS ENGINEER

COMMUNICATIONS & OUTREACH

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Cheryl Peach

DIRECTOR, SCRIPPS EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCES

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Caitlin Scully

COMMUNICATION PROGRAM MANAGER

Administration

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Adrienne Bolli

SENIOR DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT

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Crystal Liu

FINANCIAL ANALYST

Students

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Aviral Agarwal

Undergraduate Student

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Jonathan Klingspon

PHD STUDENT

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Alexander Mai

PhD Candidate

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Jordan Pierce

PhD STUDENT

ALUMNI

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Akhil Birlangi

MS STUDENT

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Shreyas Niradi

MS STUDENT

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Dominique Meyer

PHD STUDENT

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Joshua Pelz

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER

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Theocharis Papatrechas

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER

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Luca De Vivo

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER

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Neal Driscoll

Principal Investigator

Dr. Neal Driscoll is the principal investigator of the ALERTCalifornia program at the University of California San Diego, where he is a professor of geology and geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Driscoll’s background in natural hazard research traces back more than 35 years. He has published more than 120 manuscripts in high impact peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Nature Geoscience, Geology, and the Journal of Geophysical Research on subjects ranging from earthquake hazards to devastating wildfires., He has received multiple awards during his career, including the Heezen and Storke Awards for excellence in research and UC San Diego’s inaugural Undergraduate Teaching Award. Driscoll has also appeared in articles published by The Associated Press, The New York Times, CBS News, The Los Angeles Times, KGTV, KPBS and other notable news outlets.

Driscoll received his Ph.D. in geology and geophysics from Columbia University and worked as an associate research scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, MA before joining UC San Diego in 2000. His research interests at Scripps Oceanography include landscape and seascape evolution in response to tectonic deformation, sea-level fluctuations, climate, neotectonics, and geohazards.

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Falko Kuester

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Falko Kuester is co-PI for ALERTCalifornia and the Calit2 Professor for Visualization and Virtual Reality at the University of California San Diego and holds appointments as Professor in the Departments of Structural Engineering and Computer Science and Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering . He serves as the director of the Cultural Heritage Engineering Initiative , the Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology, the Calit2 Center of Graphics, Visualization and Virtual Reality (GRAVITY), and the UC San Diego DroneLab. Professor Kuester is working on methodologies and techniques for rapid infrastructure diagnostics and assessment, including diagnostic and analytical imaging and big-data visualization, providing engineers, scientists, first responders and stakeholders, with a means to create and explore large-scale digital twins of engineered systems intuitively and interactively. This research is also creating the foundation for the development of digital twins of large scale ecosystems and world cultural heritage sites and artifacts, providing a means for researchers, stakeholders, and the public alike to experience and study these artifacts and facilitate their preservation.

His vision for “Engineering a Future for the Past and Present” has helped create a catalyst for the development of disruptive technologies, including big-data analytics, deep learning, virtual reality and augmented reality, robotics/drones and layered manufacturing. The DroneLab explores drones for imaging on land, under water and in the air, for environmental and habitat monitoring, disaster and post-disaster reconnaissance, search and rescue, precision farming, general photography, cinematography, archaeology and the reconstruction of cultural heritage sites, among others.

Prof. Kuester received an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994 and MS degree in Computer Science and Engineering in 1995 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of California, Davis.

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Frank Vernon

Co-Principal Investigator

Dr. Frank Vernon is co-PI for ALERTCalifornia and PI for the University of California’s High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN) program. HPWREN is a large-scale wireless high-performance data network that is being used for interdisciplinary research and education applications, as well as a research test bed for wireless technology systems in general.

Currently HPWREN provides wide area wireless internet access for ALERT California throughout southernmost California including San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, Inyo and Riverside counties. Under ALERT California and HPWREN, research is being conducted on building “last kilometer” wireless links and developing networking infrastructure to capture real-time data from multiple types of sensors from seismic and GPS networks, hydrological sensors, oceanographic sensors, wildfire cameras and meteorological sensors.