PSU's School of Earth, Environment, and Society welcomes you to join us for the Fall 2026 SEES Seminar Series: Toward an Integrative Earth, Environment, and Society, offered as EES 4/507 to undergraduate and graduate students. Our lineup includes faculty and professional experts representing a diverse array of scholarly specializations in SEES: archeology, geography, glaciology/geophysics, and environmental science and studies, among them. These talks will be offered in person in Cramer Hall 53 on Thursdays from 3:30-4:30 PM.
Link to full seminar schedule
Oct 8 Abstract:
This presentation will discuss various geospatial modeling efforts of the U.S. Geological Survey to support risk reduction across the United States. Studies to be discussed include a national demographic analysis of individuals with potential access and functional needs to support early earthquake warning, pedestrian evacuation modeling to identify behavioral factors that enable successful evacuations from Mount Rainier non-eruptive lahar hazards, and a national study of population exposure and evacuation potential to tsunamis.
Speaker bio:
Nate Wood is a supervisory research geographer with the USGS Western Geographic Science Center and is based in Portland, Oregon. He has a Ph.D. in geography from Oregon State University. His research focuses on the use of GIS modeling to characterize societal exposure, such as demographic, infrastructure, and evacuation analysis, to a wide range of natural hazards, including tsunamis, landslides, earthquakes, lahars, sinkholes, and coastal change.