Brendan Crowell has made a number of singular contributions to geodesy and specifically to its application toward disaster risk reduction. Two of Brendan’s algorithms, known as G-FAST and PGD, are now the two algorithms that have been adopted by the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert earthquake early warning program to do ultrafast characterization of magnitude and location for the western United States. G-FAST has also been implemented at NOAA’s tsunami warning centers for operational use of real-time Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data for rapid and accurate tsunami inundation warnings. Despite being just shy of 10 years out of his Ph.D., Brendan has these as well as an impressive other body of work to his credit. His interests are broad, and any system or process that impacts GNSS signal structure elicits his focus and his productivity. For instance, in the last year alone his group has published on ionosphere perturbations caused by the massive Tonga volcano eruption in summer 2022, an ML-based slow earthquake catalog from GNSS for all Cascadia slow-slip events since 1992, and a host of coseismic slip distributions inverted from GNSS, as well as tsunami excitation for subduction zone events, for large global earthquakes. The automated slow-slip detector is particularly novel. He realized last year that by integrating GNSS position time series, in which Cascadia slow-slip earthquakes (SSEs) take on a characteristic and unique profile, he could then train an AI instance to identify those shapes and pick them out automatically. Brendan and his students have used this new technique to generate the first Cascadia-complete SSE catalog comprising several hundred SSE events in the M 6–6.7 range since 1992, when the first GPS receiver was installed. This is a great example of the novel sorts of things Brendan comes up with routinely, and I fully expect he will continue to be a fountain of new ideas going forward. To date, however, he’s made very strong contributions that have cemented GNSS’s role in global earthquake and tsunami hazard mitigation and risk reduction, a field that previously belonged mostly to seismology. We’re very fortunate to have Brendan in our community, and I fully expect the noteworthy contributions he’s made to date will continue for many decades still to come.

—Tim Melbourne, Central Washington University, Ellensburg

I am deeply honored and humbled to receive the 2023 John Wahr Early Career Award in geodesy. As I reflect on the list of distinguished past recipients, I find myself standing among scientists whose work has inspired me throughout my career. The notion that future geodesists might look up to me in the same way is a privilege I hold with the utmost reverence. It is serendipitous that this recognition coincides with a significant milestone in my research journey. Also in this year, the G-FAST geodetic-based earthquake early warning module, which has been the focal point of my research endeavors for the past decade, is set to go live in the United States. The inception of the G-FAST system traces back to 2013, yet its roots in real-time GNSS processing and techniques can be traced to the beginning of my Ph.D. under the guidance of my adviser, Yehuda Bock, at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. I am forever indebted to him for taking a chance on me and steadfastly advocating for me throughout the trials and tribulations of graduate school. I also extend my heartfelt gratitude to the late Robert Lowell, who provided me with my initial exposure to Earth science research during my undergraduate years and continued to mentor me as a master’s student at Georgia Tech. Without the mentorship and guidance of Bob, along with the invaluable contributions of Andy Newman and Zhigang Peng at Georgia Tech, I might not have embarked on this path as a geodesist. A significant part of my success can be attributed to the folks at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, where I have had the honor of serving as the token geodesist for the past decade. Throughout my endeavors, the overarching theme of my research has been a commitment to leveraging geodetic science, techniques, and algorithms for the betterment of society, which the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network has encouraged me to pursue in many ways and has made me a more well-rounded scientist. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the unwavering support of my parents; my cherished wife, Ann; and our two wonderful children, Clark and Paige. Their encouragement and steadfast belief in me have been the cornerstone of my journey, and for that I am eternally grateful. —Brendan Crowell, University of Washington, Seattle