Accomplishments - IRIS

USArray Student Siting Program Has a Big Impact in Oklahoma
Randy Keller (University of Oklahoma)
The Student Siting Program had a number of positive outcomes for the students from the University of Oklahoma who were
involved. These impacts began with our trip to the training workshop where they had a chance to meet fellow students from
around the southwest and visit another university. The summer support provided them a positive professional experience and
saved 3 out of the 4 from menial summer jobs. They all enjoyed seeing parts of our state they had never seen before and meeting
landowners who where mostly very helpful. However, they did come back with some interesting stories about some of their
encounters. Catherine Cox was a new MS student and had a particularly positive experience that led toward her being very
effective in helping layout and plan logistics for a large NSF project, the High Lava Plains project, after her siting work was finished.
She is currently finishing her MS and is continuing her education in our PhD program. She was also asked to help with a
subsequent Student Siting Program training workshop. Jonathan Green, Julianna Gay, and Matt Hamilton all went on to finish
their BS degrees with excellent academic records and are now pursuing their MS degrees. They all remember their siting experience
fondly. Their interest in EarthScope certainly spread across our student body and made them more aware of the project.
An example of how good relations with landowners were in most cases is an event that occurred when a large group of students,
faculty and media attended the equipment installation at a site near our university this spring. The landowner was very helpful
and even cooked hamburgers for the crowd. We had two young visiting scientists from China attended this event and also
became very interested in EarthScope. Pictures of this event are included in this report.
Acknowledgements: This research was supported by a sub-award from IRIS.
Figure 1: Catherine Cox at a TA station installation.
Figure 2: Seismologist Austin Holland speaking to the media during a TA station
installation.
II-38 | IRIS Core Proposal 2010 | Volume II | education and outreach