It is a great pleasure and honor to write this citation for Diego Melgar, winner of the 2022 John Wahr Early Career Award. Diego Melgar is a prolific early-career scientist whose research is notably deep and broad, pushing the interdisciplinary boundaries between geodesy and seismology. Indeed, he is a pioneer of the nascent field of seismogeodesy. His research is transformative, with broad impact by introducing real-time geodesy and rapid modeling of seismogeodetic data to the operational world of earthquake and tsunami warning. Diego is both an accomplished geodesist and seismologist, with a focus on large earthquakes and how they develop in time, and tsunami modeling for early warning. His publication record is simply stellar for someone at such an early-career stage. With only 8 years since his Ph.D. in 2014, Diego has an astounding record of over 80 peer-reviewed journal publications, many of which have been cited over 100 times, with a total of over 3,700 citations. His body of papers demonstrates consistent innovation, following a coherent theme of attempting to understand the rupture process for large earthquakes. In addition to scientific impact, his research is having a profound impact on meeting societal needs, as his applied research relates to tsunami warning systems. Diego has taken this avenue of applied research to a much higher level where the research is transformative; that is, it is now at the application stage. Diego’s contributions are significant, with a focus on improving the modeling of tsunami genesis. I would also like to highlight Diego’s extensive mentoring of students and postdocs and his service to the scientific community. Notably, he was selected to serve on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics. Importantly, NAS committees have a significant impact on the future of the field. Also notably, Diego serves on the NOAA Tsunami Science Technical Advisory Panel, which helps his science become transformative and practical for society. In addition, he has served on numerous committees for important scientific consortia such as UNAVCO (geodesy), Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (seismology), and the International Association of Geodesy Global Geodetic Observing System. In conclusion, Diego Melgar is leading the way on better models for earthquakes and tsunamis that can be applied to early warning and have societal impact. He has a stellar record for someone at such an early-career stage and is a strong role model for students and other early-career scientists. —Geoffrey Blewitt, University of Nevada, Reno

It has been a great pleasure to be part of a thriving geodetic community during a time of significant technological and scientific innovation. The proliferation of real-time networks, advances in data science, and the occurrence of numerous catastrophic earthquakes have made the past decade a moment of great historical relevance for research into large earthquakes and their physics and hazards, and for real-time response systems. First and foremost, I am grateful to my partner and fellow geophysicist Valerie Sahakian for her companionship and for endless discussions about the mysteries of life, our planet and its people, and the universe at large. I am indebted to all my teachers and mentors who have selflessly given their time to my training and education: Xyoli Perez-Campos, who imbued in me a love of Earth science, Yehuda Bock and the group at the Scripps Orbit and Permanent Array Center (SOPAC) for teaching me about real-time Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), and Richard Allen and the Berkeley Seismology Lab where I learned all about early warning systems. I am especially grateful to my colleagues, the postdocs, the graduate students, and the community at the University of Oregon where I have found a wonderful place to thrive as a scientist, one that values the human aspects of the scientific endeavor as much as the technical ones. My love for Earth science exists because our planet is still a source of awe and of myriad open questions. Deepening our understanding of them can bring one great intellectual joy, but it also allows us to harness the new knowledge for the social good. Combining those two facets of science has always been my fundamental motivation. While Earth science has a long road ahead to fulfill its promise of becoming just and equitable, I am heartened that we live in a time of vigorous debate surrounding the nature of our shared societal values as a scientific community of practice. Our fields and research are meaningless without people. Science ought to be an endeavor shared by a diverse community of individuals all problem-solving, from distinct perspectives, together for a bright future. Here, geodesy has a fundamental role to play, and so I am honored to receive the John Wahr Early Career Award. It strengthens and motivates me to keep pushing forward. —Diego Melgar Moctezuma, University of Oregon, Eugene